Shimmer
by Kiana Caelum
Summary: A prank gone wrong sent Chatoya fleeing to Ryars Valley. Her life in tatters, her family dead, she had no one to rely on but other fugitives - and things were going to get worse...because her soulmate was about to show up, and he wanted her dead.
1. Chapter One

Lyrics taken from _Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) _by Florence and The Machines.

I hope you enjoy!

**Shimmer**

_I look around but I can't find you  
If only I could see your face  
Instead of rushing towards the skyline  
I wish that I could just be brave_

It was a prank, that was all. A brilliant, inconsequential, reckless prank that went terribly wrong.

Chatoya had known about it, vaguely. Josh had made something, or taken something, or done something. Whatever the something was, her twin walked a little taller for it.

His friends slapped him on the back. They looked at him with a kind of awe. She only looked at him as she always did – as her annoying, insufferable, ever-so-slightly older brother.

The hubbub died down. Josh kept a bit of a swagger in his step, and still wouldn't say what it was he'd done to earn such accolades. He shut himself in his room a lot, but that was nothing new.

Soon, she forgot about it. The days dissolved into friends and school and the unending drama of who'd said this and who'd done that.

Until one night, it all ended.

oOo

"Run!"

That was all Chatoya heard before he shoved her out of the way, making a shield of his body. There was a sound like silk ripping and it registered dimly on her panicked mind that her brother was twisting on the blades, his face a horrific rictus of pain.

She was frozen, caught in the moonlight like a rabbit in the gleam of a predator's eyes.

The assassins tore Josh to pieces without a word. They weren't elaborate, no flourishes of knives, no graceful movements. They were economical. You could look at them and know they were people who killed for a living.

And she was next.

Her foot slid back a step and Chatoya hesitated. She shouldn't leave him. She couldn't. Fear and love were ballast, pinning her to the spot while her heart hammered inside her ribcage.

They dropped him into a puddle of his own blood as if he was litter. A cry tore from her, raw and shrill. She didn't hear it: she was nothing but a mess of denial and grief and terror.

Make it a dream, a mirage, a trick. Anything but this.

Her brother looked at her, his hair mussed and dirty. There was blood on his shoes, she noticed distantly, and he'd hate that. They were new. He'd saved for weeks, taking jobs with any witch who needed cheap labour.

There was blood on his shoes, and on his lips and in lurid red ribbons on his skin.

_Toya – run. You have to run._ He felt flimsy as a cobweb on her senses, as if he might blow away on the breeze. _Please. I've got a spell – but you can't be here. You can't._

Looking into his eyes was like watching fabric unravel itself.

_I won't leave you..._

She felt the crackle of magic then, heavy and potent. _Go,_ he ordered. _I'll be fine._

She wanted to choke on her laughter, but too late – she was choking on tears. She could feel the menace in the spell he wove around himself. _You're lying._

_Only a bit. Toya, please! Go…gods, go…_

The assassins had seen her: cold eyes turned to her, throwing back the blind blank moon.

His voice was savage with desperation. _GO!_

She ran.

Behind her, she heard footsteps, swift and determined. Metal clattered on the ground and then suddenly heat scorched a trail up her back. Screams were drowned in the roar of fire, a warcry of blood and smoke and horror.

She would never know another night like this; when familiar suburbs held shadows that seem to spring at her. Where she ran forever, tear-blinded and terrified, where every breath seared her lungs.

She ran all night and when the dawn came, her hands were bloody from hauling herself over walls and fences. Her long legs ached with every movement, muscles overtaxed.

And when she returned to her house that morning, bruised, battered and broken, they were waiting for her. Through the window she saw her parents' silhouettes and their pale, grim faces. She saw too, the lean black figures of the killers who had taken her brother and who now had taken her parents.

Her home was no longer hers. She was truly alone. There was nowhere left, nowhere except...

Except _her_.

oOo

When the girl staggered into Gatajri Jubatus's office, the shapeshifter woman's first thought was that there had been some dreadful accident.

It turned out to be the truth.

One of the PAs followed Chatoya, dabbing at her with tissue, as if that could clean off the swathes of blood and mud and rain, his face anxious. "She says she know you," he said. "I mean – I know I shouldn't have, but she said – and look at her, and, and I didn't know what else..."

"Chatoya?" Gata asked, flummoxed. "Gods – what on earth happened?"

She'd always thought Bev and Ray's daughter cool and collected: but the eyes turned to her were dazed and hopeless and fragmented. Chatoya's voice was a choked rasp. "Josh – and knives and oh gods, oh gods..._Mom_, they took my mom..."

And as if someone had cut the strings holding her up, she slumped to the floor. The PA fluttered about her, patting, mumbling trite condolences and glancing up at Gatajri with sheer panic all over his face.

Whatever had happened, it had to be handled quickly and cautiously.

"Get me a witch," ordered Gata. "Either Arji or Damal, but preferably Arji. Ignore any questions – I'll handle it later. Close the door, please."

He obeyed.

It soon became clear what had happened from the witch's distraught mental broadcast. Over and over, Gatajri watched as Josh Irkil forced his sister out of the way and launched his body into the blades. Not, she was sure, through any act of heroism. Simply because his instinct to protect his sister from the mess he had made was greater than anything else.

And her heart sank when she saw the men who led Chatoya's parents away. She only recognised one of them from the briefings she'd attended, but it was enough to tell her who was hunting down the Irkils so relentlessly: the Furies.

They were assassins, and they were expensive. They wouldn't stop until they had Chatoya.

But Gatajri wouldn't give her up. She owed it to Beverly and Ray. They'd been like parents to her when she couldn't go to her own. They'd never know...they'd never escape the Furies. But if their daughter could, surely that meant something.

oOo

"There's not much else I can do," Arji Hejazi said, standing with a grimace. She usually had an easy smile, but it was nowhere to be seen. "Lots of rest, Gata, good food – and a good therapist."

She'd been prompt, as she always was, her face full of interest. But one look at Chatoya, and professional curiosity had been replaced by dismay. Arji was the best healer Gata knew, and by far the most discreet.

Cuts had shrivelled beneath a wash of witched lights, bruises flowered and faded, and even a few of the tangles in Chatoya's black hair eased free. At last, a soft touch had put the girl to sleep, curled up on the leather chair in Gata's office.

"There's no time for that." Gata sighed. "The Furies are involved. Exactly how long do you think it'll be before they find her?"

Arji's brown eyes widened. "What on earth did she do to deserve that?"

"No idea. I need to get her away from here."

"More upheaval?" The witch's lips drew thin. "That's the last thing she needs. She's fragile as it is – I don't want to think what thrusting her into a new place with a bunch of strangers might do. Gatajri, she's barely a breath from madness. There's power inside her – she'll be a strong witch, a good witch if she has the chance and the training. I don't want to think about that power turned loose if her mind shatters." She swallowed hard. "Don't make her another Jenny."

Poor Jenny, shut away in soft-walled rooms that soaked up the wild bursts of her magic.

"She can't stay here. As it is I need you to erase half a dozen people's memories."

"Which I'll do. But there must be something left of her old life-"

Gatajri stared her down, steadfast. "Nothing. Her brother's dead. The Furies have her parents. She can't stay – sooner or later, my name will slip out. My connections are good enough to keep them from trying violence, but I need to be squeaky clean, and Chatoya needs to be a long way from here." She paused: Arji wouldn't like this. "That's why I need you to use the spell."

"Not another!" Arji snapped. "It's not a tool. Do you know how much trouble I'll be in if the Elders find out?"

Gata smiled, letting her teeth show slightly as a polished reminder of just how much trouble she could be. "You are an Elder. You're the only one who can - and will - work this, Arji. Please. Look at her. She can't stay here, but you're right – I don't want her to become like Jenny. Do you think she can live like this?"

Arji shook her head. "She just needs time, Gatajri. Give her time to deal with this. She'll learn to cope. Children are stronger than you think."

Chatoya was fourteen, only the knife edge between child and adult. Less of a child now: she had lost so much.

"She doesn't have time," pointed out Gata. The threat of the Furies hung unspoken in the air. "The Nightworld want her any way they can get her. They don't care how young she is. She's a thousand forms of entertainment, none of them pleasant."

"I know." Arji said, her hand clenching. The wedding ring on her right hand had no matching partner; that was buried with her husband, sunk into wormy earth back in Turkey. "It's the spell I object to, Gata. It siphons away pain, and yes, sometimes it is necessary. But only sometimes. I don't want to do this to a child – grief is part of life. We all lose, and it's our price for love. She will never be able to grieve. There'll be no sorrow, no anger, true – but no joy either, no ecstasy. No love."

Her patience was wearing thinner with each second. "Do you think I don't know that? I've lived under your 'unnecessary' spell for five years now. Remember, Arji? And I lived with the pain, too, I lived wishing it would end and knowing it wouldn't. Spare me a lecture on grief."

"You can't possibly comprehend the effect it will have on her."

Wrong, Gatajri thought in the calm depths of her mind. I understand better than you know. "I don't pay you to discuss possibilities. Cast the spell. I don't want to see her like this."

"Why?" Arji instantly fixed on the point. "Does it rouse some small spark of pity in you, Gatajri? Emotion frightens you, I know that. But don't deny this girl hers! Spells are easier cast than undone."

"You didn't see what she's been through. I've known this girl's parents since I was a child. I've watched Chatoya grow up and you're right, she will be a good witch one day. But not if we leave her like this. Cast the damn spell, Arji, and take your moral dilemma to someone who's interested."

The witch said nothing more, but her mouth set in a sullen line as she crossed to the girl and gently put her hands on her temples. Gata felt the air tighten as Arji began the spell.

No one could endure that loss, she told herself. Not without help. This was best for Chatoya, and best for all of them.

The spell took time to work and needed constant replenishing. Every day, in the sanctuary of the safe house, Arji returned to reinforce the mental blocks, to take away the pain of the girl's memories.

A fortnight passed, every day too long for Gatajri, who awaited the polite knock of the Furies on her door each morning as she quietly made preparations for the witch's exodus.

At last Chatoya was as safe as she could be. It was time to discuss her future – to make sure that she had one.

She smiled and welcomed the girl in. The bruises were gone, the torment buried deep and dark and she was left with this calm, unemotional creature. Gata dismissed any last doubts. No one should have to feel pain.

No one.

oOo

"Are you absolutely sure, Chatoya? There's no chance he survived?" Those green eyes held the heady glow of beryl, really rather beautiful. They were the only softness in Gatajri's strong face.

"They stabbed him," she said tiredly. In her mind, the memory spooled out with movie clarity, oddly distant. "Dozens of times. It was enough. And if it hadn't been, he cast a spell, one he couldn't survive. I don't know how he even managed - Josh doesn't have that sort of power. Didn't, I mean. They might not have killed him, but he finished it."

Her breath caught but the flood of expected tears never came. Where was the pain? Shouldn't she feel something? Anything?

"Chatoya, I don't know anything about magic. You know that. But I know about the Nightworld and I know a place where you'll be safe." Tentatively, the shapeshifter leaned over and patted Chatoya's hand.

She's trying, Chatoya thought deep in that rational, glacial part of her. She's never been any good at emotions... but she's trying.

"Why are you helping me?"

Gatajri sighed. "I owe your family a debt. And you're the only one I can pay it to." Then her stern mouth eased into a smile. "And maybe you remind me a little of my brother, the daft kitten. I've seen you both grow up, and I always wished I'd introduced you. Well – now's my chance."

Chatoya looked at this enigmatic woman, who she hardly knew at all. She was the daughter of the most powerful people this side of the Mississippi, yet she'd toss away her connections and her power for nothing more than a witch who reminded her of her brother.

And this brother...this daft kitten. He was the only person she'd ever seen bring a smile to Gatajri Jubatus.

Gata swung the computer screen around so Chatoya could see. There was a map and on it, a tiny asterisk glowed in green. She tapped it. "Ryars Valley."

"I've never heard of it."

Gata laughed, but it was a brittle sound. "Good – then we've been successful. It's a very well kept secret among a few of us who need a place to send our miscreant siblings and friends. Once you enter there, you can't leave. Unless you get a ticket courtesy of the angels."

"Angels?" Chatoya stared back. "I get the feeling we're not talking wings, clouds and nudity?"

"If only," Gata murmured. "No, I mean the organisation that go by that name. The angels are a society of people like myself. We don't really care whose side we're on, but we look after people. If you'd been a human, I would have helped you. If you'd been a vampire running from hunters, I would have."

Chatoya frowned. "I never saw you as the charity type."

"I'm not. But I did something once that I'm not proud of, and this is my penance. You have your own penance, I'd guess. You might as well join and work it off that way."

"I don't need penance," Chatoya said in a low voice. But she was lying. Of course she was. Josh had died and she had lived.

"As you will." The shapeshifter's voice was nonchalant. "But what I'm offering you is the chance to make a difference – while the angels try to find the people who killed your family. You have the opportunity to leave the valley if you need to." She sank back in the leather chair. "Think it over."

The asterisk blinked on and off. Hidden. Secret. Waiting. What else did she have to cling to? "Okay," she said softly. "Send me there."

Gatajri Jubatus nodded. "My pleasure."

_I must become  
The lion-hearted girl, ready for a fight  
Before I make the final sacrifice_

Thank you for reading - comments adored!


	2. Chapter Two

Lyrics taken from _The Girl Who Falls Downstairs_ by Tom McRae (Album: All Maps Welcome). Comments adored!

Edit: ARGH. Had a moment of muppetry and deleted Ch 2 by mistake. Back now, but apologies...this is what happens you try to edit and watch James Bond.

**Shimmer Part Two**

_She says  
I know your face  
But something's strange  
In your eyes  
Your voice I know so well  
Your words I don't  
Recognise_

The angels' meeting place wasn't as downbeat as Chatoya expected. No clichéd dark rooms filled with grim silence, no thick smoke rising up over jazz tunes and muffled voices. Just a pleasant semi-detached. She stood, an awkward mannequin, behind Gatajri in the door.

"You took your time," a male voice commented. "Bad traffic?"

She heard Gatajri breathe in sharply before the woman stepped aside. "Gods above," she murmured "He's Josh to the life, isn't he? I'm sorry, Chatoya. I didn't know the resemblance was so pronounced."

The boy blinked. "Josh Irkil? I'm a cousin. I got changed into a vampire a few years back." He squinted at her. "You look familiar...you related to Josh?"

"This is his twin sister," Gatajri said smoothly. She ushered Chatoya into the cosy room.

"My god...is that little Toya? Wow, you've shot up. Remember me? Jon." The boy waved, his bright smile a lopsided reflection of Josh's – as were the glitter of his eyes, the frosted blue of winter skies and thawing lakes. His features were a match too, a face that even this older boy – he must have been in his early twenties – hadn't quite grown into, long and solemn in repose. "How's Josh? Mom used to tell me the same milkman must have delivered in our blocks." He winked.

Gatajri grimaced delicately, a gesture of distaste rather than hurt. "Josh was killed."

Chatoya's face was still, as cool and blank as her mind. Gatajri had told her about the spell that sat heavily upon her grief; they had been afraid for her sanity, the shapeshifter had said, and they had to act quickly. It was a hex forbidden to all but the oldest witches.

"What?" Jon stared at them. "Shit, I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "It's okay," she said. Even when she thought of the moment when Josh had turned his body into the knives, she could feel no anguish. It seemed as if it had been someone else's life, someone else's petty tragedy.

"You were a pair of cute five-year old kids last time I saw you," he said gently. "Josh pulled your hair till you squealed and set his teddy bear on fire. Guess who was on firefighting duty?"

Gata eyed him. "You must have been a teenager. What are you now, twenty-three?"

"That's right, ma'am." He gave her a mock salute. "But that was before my change and before I had to head for the hills. As you can see, I got as far as the city before I ran out of breath."

"I'm still running," Chatoya said quietly.

"Really? Headed for Ryars Valley, are you, like Gatajri's little bro?"

"As ever, Jon, your discretion is astounding," Gatajri muttered. "No, wait, the other thing...non-existent."

A flush crept up his cheeks. "I'm right, aren't I?"

"That's beside the point. You could've been wrong."

He flashed a charming grin. "Surely not."

The shapeshifter sighed. "Well, take your cousin to Ryars Valley without telling everyone you meet on the way and you can consider yourself redeemed."

Jon rolled his eyes, but the smile he turned to Chatoya was far more genuine. "Ready for a road-trip, cousin?"

oOo

Jon rapped on the door of the house. It looked like anywhere else, framed by trees and the sky. Only the hours of desert they had driven through indicated it was hidden in a valley miles and hours from civilisation. "Delivery!"

They heard the rattle of the handle: the door swung open. "Jon!" a boy said, sounding startled. "And...um...what do you mean delivery?"

Jon stepped aside, revealing her. She found herself facing a boy whose green, green eyes marked him as Gatajri's little brother.

"Oh!" he said. Then gave her a sudden, sweet smile. "Hi, I'm Jepar."

Utterly ordinary words, utterly ordinary tone of voice except a crisp English accent.

Chatoya stared. Gatajri's little brother was anything but ordinary. Not many people opened the door holding a chainsaw. Not many people had blood running from their forehead in a thin red stream that crossed from above one eyebrow down the plane of that perfectly straight nose.

"Are we disturbing anything?" Jon said, his voice suggesting that he wasn't sure he wanted an answer. "Like a gruesome murder? Still hellraising, I see."

"Huh?" Jepar followed Jon's stare. "Oh, the chainsaw."

"No," said Jon, a bite on the words. "That horribly out-of-fashion T-shirt. Lime green? Faux pas. Clashes completely with that stream of, you know, blood running down your face."

He touched his free hand to the blood. "Yeah...that was Sonj. We had an argument."

"Who the hell's Sonj?" Jon demanded. "Last time I brought refugees here, there was only you, the lovely Lisa and that Redfern kid that needs some sense knocking into him."

"Ah." Jepar paused as he held open the door to let them in. "Well, you see, there's been some happenings since you dropped Cougar off. Cougar's a vampire," he added helpfully to Chatoya.

"Should have bloody well left him for the Nightworld," Jon grumbled. "Miserable devil."

"Shut up," Jepar said, grinning impudently at the older boy. "He 's not as bad as you make out." He pushed open a door and Chatoya caught a glimpse of a comfortably cluttered living room. Then something flew past Jepar's startled eyes and smashed onto the wall. "He's just a bit...Redfernish."

"No, I will goddamn well not calm down!" someone was shouting. "You can take your blood-bags and you can shove them up your-"

"Not as bad?" Jon's voice cut over the shouter. "He has a long way to go before he gets my approval."

A tall boy stormed out and nearly collided with them. "Yeah?" he snarled, eyes flashing. They were an astonishing colour, a bright, flaring gold. His glare sent shivers down her. "Well, you know what? You can take your approval and you can-"

"You already used that line," Chatoya cut in calmly. She didn't know who this boy was, but Jon was family. Right now, her only family. "Why don 't you take your revolting temper and ram it down your throat? Maybe that'll save me doing the same with my fist later."

The boy mouthed furiously for a moment and Chatoya seized the brief pause to scrutinise him. The coal-black hair fell across a pale, Nightworld handsome face that had slanting, high cheekbones and those bladed eyes. A slightly crooked nose only added to his appeal.

Very striking, she decided. And all too aware of it.

"Leave her be, Cougar," Jepar said hurriedly. "She's going to be staying here and it's already bad enough having you and Sonj arguing all the time, never mind you and... Sorry, what's your name?"

"Chatoya," she supplied and offered him a tentative smile that was returned with a wide grin.

"…you and Chatoya too," he finished. "Anyway, Sonj is right. It's not safe to go out and hunt here."

"I like my food fresh," the lamia threw back. "Who cares about a few lousy humans? Everyone round here is just a bunch of criminals, Elders included-"

"I'm not a criminal!" Jepar snapped. "And people are people, whatever their species. You can't just go round killing them!"

Sometime during the argument, Jon had dropped her bags in the hall and left. So nice of him to leave her with these...people. Everything she owned was newly bought - of course, she couldn't go back to the house - and there wasn't exactly much of it.

"Look, JJ, you may be a mincing angel but I'm not. Don't get your fur in a frazzle. I don't eat frozen food. And I don't always kill to feed..."

"You don't need to kill," Chatoya said. "You shouldn't kill."

The angry glower returned to her. "Yeah? Who died and made you Moses?"

"My brother," she said calmly, watching as that seized whatever the vampire might have had to say. Awkwardness dampened the rowdy atmosphere faster than a Jehovah's Witness. "Would you like to see if your other foot will fit in your mouth, too? At the very least we'll get a little peace then."

"Oh damn," the vampire muttered, shoulders sagging. Shorn of his anger, he looked less intimidating, maybe even vulnerable. "Sorry. I didn't think-"

"That was obvious." She cut him off, not caring how her cold comment brought a flush to the vampire's face. So what if he felt ashamed? He deserved to. "Perhaps next time you'll-"

"Easy!" Jepar stepped between them. "That's enough, guys. We've all just got off on the wrong foot."

"I've only got one left," Cougar said resentfully. "The other's shoved in my mouth, remember?"

Jepar grinned and mischief danced in his eyes. "I notice it hasn't stopped you shouting. Ignore him, Chatoya, being an enormous ass runs in his family."

"Whereas having an enormous ass runs in yours," Cougar retorted. "Oh, wait...that's just the doughnuts."

Jepar gave a theatrical, fake yawn. "Same old crap, Redfern. Seriously, Chatoya, ignore him. Come into the lounge and meet everyone."

"I'll give you a hand with your bags," offered Cougar. "If you want. And..." A glimmer of humour sparked in those eyes that had cooled from gold to hazel, a sort of apology. "...as long as you don't mind me hopping, of course."

She felt her mouth lift. "Okay. Frog prince."

Cougar did smile then and it transformed him utterly. "Does that make you the incredibly lucky girl who's going to kiss me?"

She snorted. "No. It makes you kind of slimy."

He scowled, but hoisted her bags onto his shoulder. "I can tell this is going to be a real joy."

oOo

"Welcome to the madhouse," Jepar said and collapsed onto a chair with a contented sigh. His eyes closed and his head tilted back, an expression of pure satisfaction on his face. "First time I've sat down all day," he explained. "Between Sonj and Cougar, I haven't had a moment's peace."

She watched him warily, trying to figure out this enigmatic boy who didn't seem to worry about anything, except perhaps being called a criminal. Gatjri had called him a daft kitten; Jon a hellraiser, Cougar a mincing angel and she...what did she think?

He was taller than Cougar, all legs and bones, with short golden hair that had the brown patches of a wild cat's fur dotted on it. Which of course, he was. The face turned up to the light was beautifully sculpted, fine bones and tanned skin that set off his brilliant green eyes. His long body sprawled in complete relaxation as a faint smile played over his mouth.

Peacemaker, she thought. Joker. Charmer. Yet none of those labels felt quite accurate enough.

"Where is that red-haired freak, anyway?" Cougar said, settling into the rectangle of sunshine that came through the French windows. He drew out a packet of cigarettes and lit up.

"Getting drinks for our latest, moron," the girl who strode in retorted. Her nose wrinkled as she saw the smoke. "Oh, would you put that thing out? Smoking is a disgusting habit, Cougar Redfern. If you could see your lungs, you'd-"

"Be utterly unmoved," the vampire said and smiling coldly at the redhead, blew a stream of smoke at her. She coughed and elaborately waved it away. "Tar doesn't do much for vampires, Sonj."

Sonj scowled. She was a human, Chatoya guessed, although her silver eye suggested a hint of Nightworld immortal in her blood. Her left eye was covered by a patch, putting a rakish air on her childlike face; the pirate's smile was enhanced by the strip of polka-dot cloth wrapped around her forehead.

"Well, it doesn't do much for asthma, either," she retorted and set the tray down on a small coffee table. She held out a bandaged hand. "Hi. I'm Sonj Jameson and if these two idiots had any manners, they'd have introduced me. Smoky over there's a Redfern, don't wake him up before two o'clock unless you want to see evolution in action. Jay's a shifter, it's not hard to guess what and Lisa's out right now-"

"She's been introduced to us," the black-haired lamia interrupted on a cloud of smoke. Sonj shuddered theatrically and dabbed at her watering eye. "She came in while we were arguing."

"Oh." As more smoke filled the room, her lips slowly tightened. "For gods' sake, Redfern, put that poison stick out!"

"Better do as she says," Jepar advised lazily. "I thought we agreed you were going to quit?"

Cougar snorted. "I quit quitting. So sue me. What can Sonj do?"

The redhead's foot was tapping audibly on the carpet before she turned and strode out. Cougar grinned.

Jepar threw her a rueful smile. "Like I say, not a moment's peace. So why are you joining us, if you don't mind my asking?"

"My brother," Chatoya said briefly. "He got killed because he messed in the Nightworld's business."

He raised an eyebrow. "Him and me both. Only I got lucky and survived."

She noticed how his eyes flicked away from her then. Not uneasiness over her brother's death. Something else.

"Yeah, pull the other one, JJ," Cougar glanced at Chatoya conspiratorially. "You know the Jubatus clan's second only to the First House?"

She nodded.

"Well," the vampire continued, his eyes curious as he watched Jepar for a reaction, "don't you think they could have got him out of almost any mess? They're in with the Nightworld. No, whatever you did, it must be in a higher league to the rest of us. Would you care to share?"

"Do you desire to expire?" Jepar flung back. Despite the quirky tone, his eyes were bleak. "It's not your business. Just like I don't ask why you got sent here."

A shrug. "Fair enough. I figured it was worth a shot."

"Like this?"

They all looked up as Sonj strode back in. Her face was perfectly serious as she levelled a revolver at Cougar. The anger that radiated from her was almost palpable.

Oh dear.

A click as the safety went off.

"What the hell are you doing?" Cougar said, more amused than anything else.

The girl flicked her curling red hair out of her eye so she could aim better. And where she was aiming made Cougar pale, and hastily use his hands to cover his crowning glory.

"I'm fed up with you polluting the air," Sonj snapped. "We all agreed you would quit that foul habit. You know it makes my asthma worse and I've got enough problems without suffocating. So put that out right now, and maybe I won't put a bullet through your thick carcass. This is wood compound. It _will_ hurt."

"Oh drop it, Sonj. I'll quit if I want to, not because some gobby human points a gun at me – and we all know you don't have the balls to use it-"

Sonj fired, arm jerking up violently with the kick. Chatoya felt herself twitch in automatic reaction – her magic reacted as a shield burst like green fireworks around her until the air sizzled with heat.

She thought: she wouldn't, oh gods, surely she wouldn't, _she already has_.

And the silence, oh, the silence was as vast and deep and cold as it had been after Josh had cast that spell, after he'd torn the night apart with fire...just the same...

She was seeing, hearing, but none of it made sense. She was miles away, running through an empty night, alone in a roomful of people.

"You know, it's a _really_ good job I swapped out those bullet for blanks," said a cool female voice, a ring of disapproval in it. "You might have done Cougar some damage."

"I was aiming below him!" a voice was answering indignantly, through thick mist.

"You could've killed me, you crazy shrew!" shouted Cougar.

Images snapped into her head with frightening clarity. Her brother screaming. Light dancing on metal. Knives shining. Her brother, dancing on knives, dying in fire. Clouds flitting over the moon. Knives and fire. The moon, swollen and pallid...

The images spiralled around her in a dizzying crescendo.

But that wasn't the worst. What shook her soul was that she felt nothing. Nothing at all. Not anger, not sorrow, not the awful raging grief that there should have been. She wanted to be able to cry, to shout. To find some release – but she couldn't.

"Chatoya!" Someone beside her, taking her hands. "Chatoya, are you all right?" British accent. Slowly she focused on Jepar's face, his worried green eyes. "You've gone pale," he said gently. "I thought you were going to get up and run for a moment there."

_Run..._ she heard Josh screaming it. The details smothered her.

A knife. The blade shining. So close she could see the light refracting in the metal. The blood daubed black on the edge. The blood, oh dear goddess, the blood.

And deep inside her, she felt emotion stir and turn, lazy and powerful as a slumbering tiger. And it came boiling up through her, uncontrollable and truculent.

She was furious.

She hated them all, these strange Nightpeople she had had forced on her, who woke all the memories that she had spent weeks trying to submerge, trying to forget. They had brought it all back, and the worst thing was that it didn't hurt at all. Even that had been denied her.

She didn't know she had pushed him away, that she was on her feet until the words were burning in her throat.

"No, strangely, I'm not all right! What kind of people are you? Chainsaws and guns...are you insane? I came here to be safe and...and...instead it's _this_!"

"Okay, honey." This was a new voice, the first to speak after the shot. "Sssh...it's okay."

She met dark eyes that were gentle and calm. The unfamiliar girl had a hand on her arm, feather-light. "That was a pretty poor welcome we gave you. Please, just-"

"What is that?" It was Cougar who interrupted her, and Chatoya realised his attention had been focused elsewhere while all the messy emotional stuff was going on. He was staring out of the French windows, cigarette forgotten on the ground. "Lisa...tell me that is not your date?"

The vampire's eyes were widening. "No..."

Cougar again. "Then what the hell is that?"

She followed his gaze. And felt horror slam through her, earthquakes that nearly shook her apart. The man at the window was dressed all in black, stark against the peaceful green of the garden. His smile was a gash on his face, but nowhere near as gruesome as the object he held out to her like an offering.

His gloved hands were delicate on the round, heavy object. She stared at it. The wide, fixed blue eyes. The opened, half-bloodied mouth. The features that matched her own.

It was her brother's head.

Her hands clamped to the sides of her face. No, no, anything else. Anything.

Her mouth worked frantically but nothing came out, the world around her dropping into a void. Then suddenly the words were there.

She screamed.

_Needles buzz like neon light and  
I am stained by this town  
And all my faith gone  
All maps welcome  
The stars have twisted around_

oOo

Thanks for reading - love to know what you think!


	3. Chapter Three

Many thanks to the very lovely people who commented - thank you **Danel, Starwisher, Persephone, Gdevil, Linnet Jo, **and the marvellous **Meg.**

Comments are always utterly adored! Lyrics taken from _Clocks_ by Coldplay (Album: A Rush of Blood To The Head)

**Shimmer Part Three**

_Lights go out and I can't be saved  
Tides that I tried to swim against  
Brought me down upon my knees  
Oh I beg, I beg and plead_

She couldn't look away. A man – a monster – was holding her brother's severed head and she couldn't look away, couldn't move, couldn't bring him back to life.

"Chatoya!"

Someone shook her, hard. Chatoya felt her legs crumple, her body turn to slush, and she fell, not caring because Josh was still dead, because it wasn't over and it would never be over.

But she didn't hit the ground. Arms caught her, warm and careful. She clung to them, gasping for breath.

"What are you waiting for?" a voice demanded in her ear, anxious and angry, but not at her. "Shoot him, Sonj."

"I can't. Blanks, remember...?" A girl's voice, helpless and angry.

"Well, he doesn't know that!" snapped Cougar. His voice sounded like it was coming through water, thick and distant. "Give it here."

Chatoya was riveted. They moved around her, coping, while she clung to the shreds of her sanity and her old life, and could not look away from all that remained of her brother.

It was her fault, all of this. She had left him – she'd let him die, and now they had him...

Suddenly she was wrenched away from that horrible sight. Someone was cupping her face, firm and warm and alive. The world was green as summer: it was beautiful and it was jarring, because nothing should be beautiful in a world where there was that other thing that she tried not to think about.

That thing which was her fault – because she had...she had...

A shot cracked and she felt her own body jolt in reaction. Behind her came an almighty crash, and her instinct was to turn, even knowing what was there.

_No. _The sound came clearly, not in her ears but in her mind. _You can't see. I won't let you. _Another shot. She shuddered and the voice drowned out the chaos, unruffled and soothing. _Just breathe in and close your eyes. _She couldn't do anything but obey._ I'm here. It's just you and me. Keep breathing. _

Around them were muted sounds, muffled by the voice that spoke over them, soft and real. Thuds and bangs and harsh shouting, all of which she ignored. That voice that was the utter contrast of the thing that she had been watching, full of life and compassion.

_Okay. Now open your eyes. _And everything was green, bright, calm: but as she blinked, Chatoya realised she was looking into someone's eyes. Jepar's eyes, inches from hers, Jepar's arms, holding her. She was on her knees, his shoulders solid under her hands.

"What happened?" she asked him. Her voice hurt, raw as if she had been shouting. I was, wasn't I? Chatoya thought calmly. I was...was I dreaming? Was there a bad dream? No. Something had made her scream, hadn't it? Something bad and frosted blue and dead. Something-

"Don't think about it. Don't worry about it. It's taken care of."

"I have a question," she said and was pleased to hear her voice, steady. Normal. That's good, she thought. It's under control now. Whatever it was, it can't hurt me. "Why are we sitting down?"

He smiled, but his eyes were uneasy. "You fell," he told her. "I caught you."

"Oh." It was filtering back. And when the truth hit her, fast and hard, it was a knife in her ribs. "Oh Goddess," she said helplessly. "That man – my brother. He had him, he had Josh..."

Her temples hurt – as if there was tremendous pressure on them, suppressed emotion straining against the barrier built to hold it back.

"No, Chatoya, hold on," Jepar said grimly. "Don't let them win, please. No hysterics."

"You know, I've heard shock's good for hysterics," a dark voice put in. She and Jepar both looked up to see Cougar Redfern, tapping a gun against his leg significantly. He looked flushed and angry – and scared, too, she thought.

"No, you moron, it's what causes hysterics." Sonj was very pale and Chatoya thought she probably looked the same. Her skin felt cold. "Don't even think about shooting her, Redfern. That's more of a shock than anyone needs."

"Yeah, well you didn't think, you crazy…" Cougar stepped into Sonj and the pair of them were arguing again. The air was filled with angry voices and expletives.

But the brief diversion had been enough. The panic fluttering inside her was under control. She could deal with this. She had no choice.

"Can we get up now?" Jepar said. She nodded and he carefully lifted her, as if he thought she would crumple at any moment. Worry was stamped on his face – strange, worry for her, who he barely knew.

Her face stung in long hot lines. When she put her hands up to investigate, he caught her hands. "Your nails cut your face," Jepar told her matter-of-factly. "You were a bit upset."

"I know," she muttered. Embarrassed. Four complete strangers and she had made an idiot of herself. But worse, she had hauled her past right into their present. "Sorry."

He gave her a bewildered look. "I'm pretty sure no one thinks this is your fault."

Just her, then.

"I mean, that was _awful_. And I don't know what the right thing to say is, but...but...if there's anything I can do…" He raised his voice, directing a pointed glare at Cougar and Sonj, locked in their personal quarrel. "That _we_ can do, we will. Even if some of us are being _enormous jerks_ right now."

She couldn't think of anything to say. His kindness was overwhelming, and maybe he realised, because he gave a sweet smile and went to split up Sonj and Cougar. Or maybe he'd just noticed the gun Cougar was holding was inching up to the redhead's face with every insult.

"I couldn't find him." The girl with the flawless dark skin and long-lashed liquid eyes strode back in. Frustration was etched in her words. "Bastard got away."

"Who the hell was he?" Cougar demanded. His eyes flicked to Chatoya. "Take it that decapitated head was someone you knew?"

"Oh, there's the famous Redfern charm again," Sonj said acidly. "Know what tact is, Cougar?"

"Yes," Chatoya leapt in nervously before they could start another argument. "It was my twin brother. I...that was one of the people who killed him. Or found him. He killed them. It's..." She waved her hands and tried to concentrate on calm, deep green inside her mind. "It's all a bit of a mess."

"A _bit_?" Cougar began but a kick in the shin from Sonj made him reconsider. "Okay! I'll shut up!"

"Look..." The gentle suggestion was Jepar, of course. "Why don't we clear up this mess first, then we'll sit down and talk?"

Chatoya looked around. Both the windows were demolished, apart from jagged hunks of glass that still clung to the frame. Glass littered the floor. A chair was lying outside and Sonj, seeing her expression, muttered, "Well, there wasn't much else to hand."

"Might be a good idea," Chatoya said weakly. She wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream. In the end, she settled for laughter. It was easier, even if it didn't seal the void inside her. And Cougar had no qualms about slapping her when she suddenly found she couldn't stop.

oOo

Somehow, the mundane tasks made it easier. It kept her mind away from what had happened, and so did the silly jokes the four Nightpeople cracked. They were careful to include her, though Cougar made one or two painfully blunt statements that the other three promptly kicked him for. He spent most of the next hour hobbling. By the time they were done, it was evening, the darkness complete.

With the broken windows hidden, the world seemed almost normal. They were five teenagers in a lounge, music on, with only her past hanging in the air like an unanswered question.

"Chatoya," Jepar said, "this is Lisa."

She didn't feel at all right yet, and was grateful for the little bit of normality he gave her.

The dark-skinned girl glanced up from where she leafed through a magazine. She looked in her teens, though it was hard to judge just where. "I'm a made vampire. Twenty-six any time now."

"Yet she passes herself off as fourteen," Jepar said wryly. "And goes to the same school as we all do. Know what's worse? She enjoys it."

"I never had an education," Lisa said, arching an eyebrow at him. "One day, you'll appreciate just how much it means. And even if I have to be stuck in classes with you, I'm just about immature enough to make the best of it."

"Hey!" he said. "I'm not immature." Jepar gave Chatoya a conspiratorial grin. "Cougar holds that title."

The culprit in question was, for once, not taking umbrage. Even more unusually, he was quiet, and still.

Despite their differences, Sonj and Cougar were slumped on a sofa with her head on his shoulder. Perfect picture of romance. Until she noticed the way he had his teeth clamped to her wrist and the slightly pained, but resigned expression on Sonj's face.

"Do you have to do that in here?" Lisa asked, grimacing.

"Yeah," Jepar put in, lifting his head from where he lay. "Some of us would like to keep our dinner down."

Cougar stopped feeding with a murmur of reluctant thanks to Sonj. "Hey, you have some pretty disgusting habits too, JJ."

"Like what?"

"Listening to the Spice Girls. That makes me feel ill, but I don't complain."

Jepar didn't react to that barb; just leaned his head back again, closing his eyes while orange lights danced over his skin. He stretched in a sinuous, feline way, and it made him seem less human.

They were all the same, she realised. It was in the way they lounged casually, the glittering eyes and utter lack of fear. All hunters. The change had been so subtle, she hadn't noticed and it had only come with the darkness. It was most noticeable in Cougar, his eyes no longer holding any trace of humanity, but pure molten gold that seemed to flow over her with his lazy, curious stare.

"Enough of the introductions," he drawled. "We have a problem. Sian or whatever she's called-"

"Chatoya," the other three chorused with variying levels of exasperation.

"-whatever, has assassins chasing her. She lives here...and we're all in danger from the Nightworld if they figure out where we are. That makes her problem our problem. So what are we going to do about it?"

Sonj pushed at Cougar until, half-grumbling, he moved to let her up. She began to pace in ragged circles. "Look," she said in her quick, curt voice. "It's been a while since I ran into the Nightworld. Since I came here, in fact. But they're tough. They've got years on us. What are you suggesting we do, fight them?"

"You see any other option?" Cougar said. "But I didn't say it had to be a fair fight."

Sonj's lone silver eye flickered. "Now you're interesting me, Redfern. What are you thinking?"

"Excuse me," Chatoya said.

"I'm thinking that-"

"Excuse me!"

They stopped plotting; four pairs of eyes fixed on her. Sonj stopped pacing, still as a bloodhound catching the scent.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," she said, aware of how intense those combined stares were. Prickles walked up and down her skin. "But it isn't your business. I don't want it to be. And...if it's going to mean you winding up in trouble, I won't stay here. There must be other places."

"Not anymore," Lisa said, her dark eyes serious. "You can't just leave Ryars Valley. You're stuck here – and so are we."

"If they find us," Sonj added, unusually quiet, "we're dead. And they have found us now. It's not a case of sending you away. We've got to get rid of them, one way or another."

"No." What were they saying? "I've known you for a few hours. I don't matter to you! I can leave when I want and that's what I'll do."

"You're not listening," said Lisa, firm. "You can't leave. Ryars Valley is a one way trip."

She swallowed. "Then I'll...I'll hide. It's a big place. It's me they want."

"It's you they want now," Sonj said, feet planted firmly apart. Her face glowed with determination Chatoya knew she would never have. "But it'll be us they want later. And they'd come back for us."

"Why?" she whispered staring around at these strange people. "Why are you so important?"

"Why are you?" Cougar countered instantly.

Through it all, Jepar stayed silent. His face was closed, wary, empty of the warmth she'd seen.

She looked from one to the other. Could she tell them? No one knew this. Not even Gatajri knew.

Josh had made her promise. He'd been scared – and euphoric too, because it was a wild prank, one that had made him a legend among his friends. But even they hadn't know just what he'd found in the old house on Saracen Street.

But there was no one else left. She had to trust someone, and it had to be these curious, guarded people who had protected her once already.

"I..." She closed her eyes. That helped. "There was this house near us. Spooky place. There'd always been stories about it – that the guy who owned it was some Nightworld bigshot. It was supposed to be full of spells and treasure. We all knew about it. Then one of my brother's friends dared him to break in and steal something. So he did. The stupid idiot, he did."

"What did he find?" said Lisa, her voice gentle.

She gave a bitter laugh. "A folder, and a spell. The really, really illegal kind. I don't think he knew what it was when he picked it up, not until he read it later. But it was too late then. There were new wards on the house and no way to put it back. He didn't know what to do – so he hid it. He was going to ditch it at the dump, but before he could, they found him – us..."

"What the hell kind of spell would make someone murder him?" said Cougar. He sounded more than a little edgy.

"There's kind that could destroy everything," she said softly. The silence was intense.

"I feel an ominous piano concerto coming on," Cougar muttered.

She laughed, a breathy sound more like a gasp. Control, she needed control. "I know, it sounds that way. But it's true." She dared to open her eyes then and saw rapt fascination on Sonj's face, puzzlement on Lisa's and nothing at all on Jepar's. "What do you know about dragons?"

The colour drained from Jepar's skin and those green eyes blazed with unholy light. "No!" was all he said, but it was enough. He must have seen the answer in her face as he shook his head. "That's impossible, Chatoya. Don't give me that..."

It was a futile plea. She couldn't give the answer he wanted; they both knew that. "Yes," she said. "I wish it weren't true but it is. It can bring them back."

"What?" Cougar looked from one to the other. "Dragons? They're myths. Just pretty pictures."

"Not exactly..." Lisa said smoothly. "They were the first shapeshifters, only they weren't confined to one shape. And nothing could kill them except another dragon. The witches put them all to sleep thirty thousand years ago." Despite her calm, her knuckles were white on the magazine.

"Someone wants them awake. The folder Josh found – it had places where they were buried. Names. That was what the spell was for."

"No..." Jepar breathed. Every line of his body tense, staring at her with a look she could only describe as haunted. He knew about the dragons, of course he did. "They wouldn't be that stupid. Please, tell me this is a joke."

"No joke," Chatoya said, her throat alarmingly dry. "They want to wake them."

"Oh my god," Sonj said. She sat abruptly, hands limp in her lap. "Oh my god. Now I feel completely insignificant."

Chatoya looked at them. So now they knew. "What about you? Why do the Nightworld want you?"

"After that, I'm not sure it matters," Lisa said, her face disbelieving. She shook her head. "Sorry. That wasn't polite. It's just...oh gods. No wonder they're hunting you."

"Well, seeing as I can't really believe this," Cougar said in his unconcerned, amused voice, "how about I start filling in Toya on our various crimes while you lot panic?"

She started at the nickname, but inwardly, some part of her was pleased. It was acceptance, of a sort.

"JJ wound up here because he committed some sort of heinous crime. I changed someone illegally." Something flickered in his eyes. There was more to it than that, but he would never tell her. "Lisa ruffled some Nightworld feathers when she got caught robbing their vault of old scrolls and spells. And Sonj...well, she's a bit of an oddity."

"I'll tell her, Redfern," the redhead said fiercely. "Before you twist it all round. I'm a half-breed," she informed Chatoya. "Half witch, half-vampire. I shouldn't exist."

"I think the point of all this," Jepar interrupted, "is to say that you can trust us. You've got no one else. Well, neither do we. We left our friends and or family. It us against the world now. So you can trust us. You have to trust us, because there's no other way out of this mess."

She looked at them. Two vampires, a half-breed and a shapeshifter. And now a witch. Yes, she agreed, she was part of them. Their tension was obvious: they'd handed themselves to her.

"I think I can do that," she said. Lisa smiled: Jepar only let out a soft breath while Sonj nodded as it had been a foregone conclusion.

"Look," Lisa suggested, "Why don't we sleep on this? Everything looks better in daylight."

Jepar smiled, though his eyes were bleak. "Might be a good idea," he agreed. "I'll show Toya her room."

There was a quiet chorus of 'goodnights' as Jepar led her to her room on the second floor and left her with a sleepy mutter about breakfast.

Chatoya pushed open the door. It swung easily, showing a wide room with walls that were grey under the moonlight. It was a tranquil scene of liquid shadows and marble light.

But she almost ran in, slamming the door and staring at the figure who stood, looking out onto the night vista, her heart hammering with disbelief and fear. She didn't need to see his face to know who it was. She was just a mirror of him, after all.

"I found you." His voice echoed through her, familiar and impossible. For moments, while time spun out, she hesitated, tentative and afraid. "It hurt so much, Toya, but I found you." Something in his body seemed to wilt. "I'm sorry. Oh gods, I'm so sorry."

Josh turned – and it was him, oh, just as he had been, as he surely could not be.

Finally she found her voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"

_Confusion never stops_  
_Closing walls and ticking clocks_  
_Gonna, come back and take you home_  
_I could not stop that you now know_

oOo


	4. Chapter Four

Huge thanks to the angels who commented last time = thank you: My thanks to all of you wodnerful angels who commented last time round :-) Thank you: **Starwisher, Danel, MegAgain, Jeporra** and the bounteous **Butterfly.**

Lyrics taken from _How To Save a Life_ by The Fray (Album: How To Save a Life) Comments and criticism very much adored!

**Shimmer Part Four**

_Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend  
Somewhere along in the bitterness  
And I would have stayed up with you all night  
Had I known how to save a life_

He looked no different. She searched him for the wounds she knew had to be – she had seen him folding over the knives, seen his blood smeared on the sidewalk.

"I had to see you," Josh said, his voice husky.

Part of her wanted to embrace him – but doubt riddled her. The door was flat and cold on her back, much needed support right then. "I thought you were dead. I can understand you had to lay low, but why did you take so long? It's been _days_ – how could you let me think that, how could you leave me-"

"I am dead," he said.

It was ridiculous. "Dead people are usually more horizontal."

"Yeah. I'm surprised too." He scuffed his feet – same shiny new trainers that she'd seen disfigured by his blood. "Toya, I'm not joking."

"Yes, you are," she whispered, because he was there – solid and real and just the same. In the darkness, his face was hard to read, but his silhouette blocked out the night sky in the window, as only someone living could and his shadow-

He had no shadow.

Everything else did – soft spindly moon-shadows that were black upon grey, but not him.

There was thunderous pressure at her temples, and nothing in her heart. Her hand scrabbled sideways – she felt the switch and Chatoya flicked on the light.

There could be no doubt then. No shadow. No wounds. And the wall behind clearly visible through his translucent body. The truth sank in like poison.

He was dead, and she was not, and they were divided.

"What are you?" she said, her throat dry and rough.

"I don't know. A ghost, I guess." His body shivered, as if an unseen breeze was trying to blow him away. Panic flickered in his face. "I don't have long. Toya, it's hard being here. It keeps...it keeps trying to take me back."

She didn't want to ask: she couldn't stop herself. "Back where?"

"The other side." He looked away – still trying to protect her, even though it was far too late. "I'd never have found you if you hadn't cast that spell. I felt your magic half a world away."

What spell? she wanted to ask – and then remembered the shield she'd thrown up when Sonj shot at Cougar. It had been reflex, but it had also been her first spell since it all began.

"Is that how they found me, too?" she said.

He looked at her with terrible sadness. "Probably not. They've got my blood. That'd be enough to track you. Sorry, sis. Guess sharing that womb was a bad idea."

The headache was a welcome distraction from other, harder emotions. Pain, at least, was easy. "They took Mom and Dad."

"I know. I went home." He gave a rattling laugh. "They trashed the place. Bastards. It wasn't enough to kill me, hell no, they had to break everything too..." Something fierce flashed in his face. "They didn't find the spell, though. And they won't."

"Then they won't give up," she said softly. "They've found me, Josh. This afternoon someone was waving your head at me. Minus the rest of you."

A wan smile touched his mouth. That was when she knew that whatever changes he had undergone, he was still just Josh, her irresponsible twin brother. "I saw. That was...icky."

"Icky," she repeated, feeling decidedly surreal. Headache aside, she felt as if she was in a dream. "Someone was brandishing bits of you about and the best you can come up with is that it's 'icky'?"

"Well, it was." He frowned, head cocked to one side. "And you know what, sis, if the best you can come up with is zen-like calm, I'm a little offended. You go all wobbly at the sight of roadkill. All my severed head got was a scream."

"You don't know, do you?"

His eyebrows arched. "Know what?"

"I let Gatajri put a spell on me. It stops grief. They had to, I think." She shivered with the hazy memories of those weeks after his death. "I think I was mad. Or not far off."

She wasn't sure what reaction she expected. Not the one she got, certainly.

"What the hell were you thinking?" He was gaping at her, and his feet actually parted company wit the ground. "Of course you were! Look at what happened. Me and...and..." He swallowed. "Mom and Dad," he said, their names a rasp. "That doesn't mean you should be trying to magic it all away! Do you know what those spells do?"

"It works," she said. If her headache was unrelenting, it kept away worse feelings.

He snorted. "Oh yeah, I'm sure it does! But it won't forever. C'mon, sis, it was my topic for one of the Circle Midnight debates, remember? Spells like that don't stop emotion. They just suppress it. It's just like putting a dam in your mind. Everything builds up...and someday, it'll snap."

"What do you mean, snap?" she said. Gatajri had never mentioned the spell might be dangerous. She'd even said she'd used it herself.

A tiny hard knot of fear grew in her abdomen.

"It depends how soon it breaks. The later it is, the worse the backlash. From what I've read though, it hurts. Not just emotionally, but physically. If you leave it too long, it can kill you. You have to stop it."

Chatoya was frozen still. "I never knew..." Then she shook her head. Why was she wasting time on this? "It doesn't matter, Josh. What's done is done."

"You sound just like her," Josh said savagely. "Gatajri."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Even now, she wanted his approval. His support.

He took a deep breath, pressing his hands to his temples. "Not if you're good with being an emotional ice-queen destined to spend your life alone because you're too frightened to feel anything."

Her only answer was an inadequate one. "It hurt," she said softly. "Without you. Without them. It hurt so much, Josh, and I couldn't – I didn't know how anything would ever be all right again."

He turned away, hands covering his face. His shoulders dropped. "This is my fault," he mumbled. "That stupid dare...all this." The pain was raw in his voice. "I'm sorry, Chatoya. I'm so sorry. I never meant you to get hurt."

And then his shoulders shook, and he fell to his knees without a sound as she realised he was crying. Josh never cried, not even when their grandmother died; she had always been the one who cried, and he'd been the one who comforted her. Now he needed her.

She reached out to him – and her hand passed though him. Her brother was alone in a place she could hardly comprehend.

All she could do was kneel down beside him. She didn't know what to say. "Josh..."

Tentatively, she put her hands over his. There was no sensation, no sign that anything but air was there...except for the dampness on her hands. She took them away and stared. His tears were real. The only real thing in a night of ghosts.

They were there for a long time, kneeling opposite each other.

When he stirred, finally looking at her, she didn't want to meet his eyes. The sadness, the pain she saw in them was discomforting to see. And he knew it too. "You can't handle it now, can you?"

"What?" It was so easy to pretend everything was normal.

"Emotion. Grief. You hate seeing them in other people because you can't understand it. Gata was always the same. Why do you think she was such a rubbish babysitter?" A soft, sad smile. "Sis, you've got to get rid of the spell. You're not the same."

The mere thought of the grief that had possessed her was unnerving. She stared at him. "Neither are you."

He flinched. "Yeah. I noticed. But right now, I'm more alive than you."

Chatoya dropped her eyes. "Leave it, Josh. Mistake or not, it's how I am now."

"I will not-" His body rippled as if he were water, disturbed by an unseen hand. "Damn! I didn't mean to get distracted...I came to tell you..."

His voice faded, then returned, hoarse and frantic.

"...see the future...looking out for you...red eyes, watch out for them and _run_..."

He was shining like a star, white and gold in her drab empty room, so bright she had to shield her eyes.

"...red eyes, okay, red eyes..."

Light blazed, and when it faded, she was alone. Nothing remained of his presence: and as the seconds passed, she began to doubt what she had seen.

"Red eyes?" she muttered, as a yawn overtook her. Red eyes. A shapeshifter? A werewolf?

Whatever it was, there was nothing she could do about it now. Before she went to sleep, she checked the room. The long knife she had taken from the kitchen went under her pillow, her hand wrapped tight around it.

And then she was safe. Chatoya slept.

Had she been awake, she would have seen the curtains flutter as if a breeze had caught them, despite the closed window, the air trailing across the room. It lifted her hair, fanning it out across the pillow, bringing a gust of icy air and words, soft and fierce. "Red eyes."

A glint of turquoise fire danced from the blade and seemed to sink into it. And there was only stillness.

oOo

"Urgh," Jepar yawned and slumped down at the table. "I hate Wednesdays. Why did you wake me up?" he moaned pitifully at Lisa, his eyes half-open and resentful.

"Same reason I always wake you up. School." The vampire poked him with a fork until he perked up enough to bat her away. "The Elders are keeping an eye on us. Since Cougar pulled that stunt with the tyres, we've been under surveillance."

Chatoya stayed silent. When she woke up, her conversation with Josh seemed like a dream. It had to have been – she was exhausted and wrung-out and after yesterday, no surprise she'd hallucinated him.

"Ohhhhh..." Cougar Redfern stumbled in, Sonj pushing him forward. "Let me go back to sleep. It's not even dawn yet."

"It's been dawn for five hours, Cougar," Lisa said sternly, though her eyes danced. "Luckily for you, I have just the thing to wake you up." She turned to the stove where a pan was sizzling. "Plate?"

Sonj grinned and held one up. The vampire picked up the frying pan, eyes narrowing and flicked a pancake through the air. It missed the plate by about three feet and landed on the floor with a damp splat. They all looked down at it. There was a moment of reverent silence.

"Cereal, anyone?" Lisa said brightly, throwing the pan aside.

"You're a lousy cook," Cougar grumbled. His black hair was tousled and he looked as if he hadn't slept at all. "I hate living in this house, I hate watching you throw pancakes on the floor every morning, I hate getting up at eight o'clock, but most of all, I hate cereal."

Sonj turned to Chatoya. "And that's Cougar's 'I hate' speech, You'll hear it every Wednesday morning, and twice on a Monday."

"Shut up, you freak," the subject of their conversation muttered. Enraged, Sonj flicked his ear, which turned out to be a very quick way to wake him up, right into a storming fury. Breakfast disintegrated rapidly into carnage as Lisa dragged Chatoya outside.

oOo

"Breakfast is always like that," Jepar said. His black eye was already yellowing. He'd been brave or foolish enough to try and break up the argument, and caught a misaimed punch from Sonj when Cougar had moved. "Sometimes it's quiet and we actually get to eat - not that we need to, mind, but if you can stop Lisa making kamikaze pancakes, she's actually a pretty good cook."

Chatoya smiled. "I can make you a wake-up brew if you want," she offered. "I'm good with herbs."

The look he shot her was pure gratitude. "Sounds great. How are you with anti-Redfern brews?"

"Not so good," she said, half-smiling.

"Shame. He'll probably stop sulking by lunch."

Cougar and Sonj were some way behind, almost certainly still arguing, with Lisa as a reluctant buffer between the two of them.

Still, she didn't mind. The walk was long, but the sun was warm and it meant she had Jepar to talk to. He kept up a running commentary on the way, light and wry. Every time those green eyes flicked to her, she felt a little giddy. There hadn't been many guys who looked like him at home, and the ones who did were all far too aware of it.

There were more Nightpeople here than she had expected; vampires with their fluid movements and startling looks, shifters stalking along, heads turning as they caught an interesting scent or sound. Witches were plentiful too, pentagrams glinting on bracelets, rings, even on the back of a leather jacket.

"It's full of refugees," Jepar said quietly. No one else could have heard him. "There's a lot of hunted people, though we all pretend we're doing the hunting." Those green eyes glinted. "Town centre's not far from here, up past the ghost roads."

"The what?"

He jerked a thumb at the woods that ran beside the road. It was a fairytale forest, thick and dark and hinting at mystery. Although the sun shone into it, it didn't seem to shift the dense black shadows. "In there. Everyone calls them that."

"Why?"

Keen stare. She met those eyes without flinching and wondered what he saw in her face. Something that made him answer seriously. "There's a lot of strange stories about them. It's the Pack's territory, but there's supposed to be other things that live in there. Monsters. If you go in, you'll come out a ghost."

"That's horrible," she said, fiddling with the bangles that clinked on her arms. Everything looked so innocuous. People walked past the woods as if nothing out of the ordinary happened there.

"Yeah. We don't come through here unless we have to or unless there are people around."

They had come to a crossroads. Directly ahead, the road sank into a large building that was surrounded with trees and a cast-iron fence that wasn't much smaller than her.

"School. Or hell with landscaping. However you want to see it," Jepar said with a wink. People converged on it from all directions, chattering and laughing. "Nervous?"

She would have been, in another time and place, where she didn't have the spell. Still. He didn't know about it: she didn't want him to know she wasn't normal, wasn't _right_. "A bit."

"Don't worry. You'll be in some of my classes. You can sit with me."

"Did you think you had a choice?" she said, nudging him.

"You've been here a day and already you're trying to push me around," he complained. His stunning smile flashed again. "You're going to fit right in here."

Her mirth faded quickly though as they passed by the ghost road. Josh's voice kept intruding on her thoughts and uneasily, images of sinister red eyes rippled through her thoughts. "Got anything called the 'red eyes'?" Chatoya asked, trying to keep her voice light.

His blond head tilted on one side. "No...don't think so. Why, did one of the others mention them?"

"No. Just heard it somewhere." She evaded his glance, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. Jepar was far too perceptive. And she wanted, with a fierceness that surprised her, to be liked by him.

They both jumped as a car reversed out from a driveway and narrowly missed them, rear lights flaring crimson. Jepar hauled her aside, jumping back himself as the car turned to head back down the road, towards the house.

"Bloody idiot!" he called at the driver, who couldn't hear him, of course, with the windows shut. Not just shut, but tinted. Unusual on a Fiat, of all things.

They carried on walking. The noise from the school rose as they got nearer and she could see people sitting outside, leaning on walls, trees, chatting. Chatoya frowned. It sounded strange. Almost like...an engine? Then she realised the sound wasn't coming from ahead of them. It was coming from behind them.

"Is that..."

They turned as one, Jepar's face puzzled.

The Fiat was flying back up the road, a sea-green blur. People stopped to stare – calls and laughs rose, no doubt because they thought the driver was larking about. The bodywork shone as bright as the sea under sunlight.

Whoever was driving had to have the pedal flat to the floor. She froze as the car suddenly swung towards her.

"Oh hell," she heard Jepar say. "Move Toya, move!"

She couldn't. She just stared. Light streaked down the darkened windshield in a pale beam, growing larger and she knew without a doubt it was going to hit her, the engine rising into a roar that crashed in her ears.

There was a sharp impact...and the car screamed by. As she saw the reflected flicker of red glow on the rear lights, she understood. They were the red eyes. Not a person or a place. A car.

She landed on her side – Jepar had thrown her as if se weighed nothing. He was crouched beside her, breathing hard, his eyes gleaming. She stared up at him, shaking. Her side had gone numb, but she would bet there would be a pretty sunset of bruises there tomorrow.

The green eyes were wide, anxious. "You okay?" he gasped. She nodded and he hauled her to her feet. The shapeshifter was shaking almost as violently as she was, his face ashen. "What the hell was that?"

Her gaze slid above his shoulder. "I don't know," she whispered, aware that people were staring at them with interested, scared eyes. "But it's coming back for another run."

He snapped round. When he turned back, there was calm on his face. But she could see fear rising in his eyes. "Then we'd better do the same," he said in a tight, controlled voice. "Fast."

"Where?"

His eyes were filled with chaos and Chatoya realised he wasn't calm at all.

"I don't know!" he yelled over the growing hum of the engine. "Worry about that later - it's the running part that counts!"

She threw a quick glance at the car. It was starting to accelerate now. And that strange core of poise inside her took over, as if the danger had tripped a switch somewhere. "Then let's go."

And then they ran like hell. Not to the school: the car was there. Not back to the house: the road was just one long chopping board, waiting for them to be sliced and diced. The few buildings had their doors firmly shut.

The roar of the engine filled the air. It drowned out even her thumping heart, rising to a crescendo.

She followed Jepar, praying he knew where he was going as wind drove back her hair. Her bag and folders lay scattered on the ground behind them.

"Down here!"

Beneath her feet, the road vanished. They were on grass, bumpy and scraggly. She heard the car scream past as the brakes howled. Good, that would buy them a little more time.

She found herself weaving through trees, through cool air that smelt of leaves and mud. There was silence, disturbed only by the leaves rustling in the breeze.

And then she heard a howl rise, baneful and eerie in the hush, and she realised with burgeoning horror just where Jepar had led her.

The ghost roads.

_Some sort of window to your right  
As he goes left and you stay right  
Between the lines of fear and blame  
You begin to wonder why you came..._

oOo

_Thank you for reading - comments adored.  
_


	5. Chapter Five

Thank you to the wonderful, fabulous peopel who reviewed last time - much love and chocolate to you! Thanks:

**Me, Starwisher, **and the magnificient **Meg.**

Comments would be adored, pored over, delighted in, adulated, venerated, and worshipped.

Hope you enjoy!  
Ki

**Shimmer Part Five**

_The paths have been crossed  
The crumbs are gone and the way, and the way is lost  
Melancholy phantoms eye our skins  
Poison apples falling with the wind  
Hear the sigh of the trees  
Those who enter here never leave_

Chatoya stopped still, danger screaming in every sense.

She knew there were places like this. Niches folded away from the world, meshed with shadows that the sunlight couldn't sear away, where time expanded and contracted in peculiar ways. In the gnarled roots and rustling leaves was the echo of a thousand dark tales.

They didn't really have a name, except for the feeble labels people could give them. Dark woods. Shadow paths. Ghost roads. All just labels that only hinted at the menace within them. She didn't expect to be led into one by someone she trusted implicitly and perhaps, it seemed, foolhardily.

"Are you mad?" she heard herself say in a voice that didn't quite sound like her own.

Jepar, breathing hard, looked up. His green eyes were dark as the leaves. "No," he said tightly. "But there's a bunch of people trying to kill us. And they're trained, Chatoya. This is the only place I know that'll put us on even terms. I know the woods. They don't."

"I thought you said you didn't come in here-"

"Unless I had to." There was a grim slant to his smile. Against the soft shadows and the tangled trees, he seemed entirely natural, at ease. "Where do you think I hunt?"

And she was sharply reminded that he wore his human shape like clothing. "You said it was dangerous."

"It is. But I'll look after you." His jaw was set now, his alarm fading into determination. "We don't have time to discuss this. Toya, trust me. Please."

He held out a hand, and when she saw it shook a little, she felt oddly reassured. He might be part-cheetah, but right now, he was mostly human. And he was scared too, and trying to hide it.

"All right," she said, and took his hand. His fingers closed over hers, warm and at first, a bit too tight.

Then they ran.

Leaves slapped against her face and became snarled in her hair. On her bare legs, she felt the tiny, sharp stings of nettles. Her feet tangled in weeds as she fought to tear free, branches snagging her clothes. As she put a hand on a trunk to steady herself, bark flaked off, gritty and splintering onto her palms.

Witches might be supposed to love nature, but nature clearly did not reciprocate the feeling.

Behind them, she heard the brakes screeching, the growl of the engine.

The silence of the woods grew thicker as they fled further in. The birdsong died away, the wind unable to dip between the thickly woven leaves.

"Where are we going?" she asked Jepar, as much to hear a sound, any sound, in the intense hush.

He vaulted over a log, every movement fluid. The forest seemed to offer him no resistance and looking at him, it was easy to see why. He moved as if he belonged. He didn't try to fight the place, but simply slid through the shadows as if he was one himself.

He turned around and she saw him trying to hide laughter at the state of her, scruffy and scratched. There wasn't a mark on him.

He does belong here, she thought. Whatever he might say and do, there's still a bit of the wild in him, of something old and feral. Maybe that's why they call them ghost roads; because they bring back the past back for a while.

"Somewhere safe," he said, sounding slightly choked. "That's, um, impressive camouflage. You've brought half the forest with you."

"Very funny."

"You had to wear a skirt, didn't you? Couldn't have been practical."

"I like to look my best for all the maniacs."

His smile widened. And then it vanished as the engine cut off and the slam of car doors shattered the silence like gunshots.

"Come here," he ordered. She obeyed, and was surprised when he leaned over the log and calmly lifted her over, his eyes on the broken foliage they had left behind. A clear trail that anyone could follow. "We have get away – they'll track us right down…"

She didn't think twice – the spell flicked from her fingers like a lightning ball, an eldritch green, and sank into the ground. Something creaked and there was a susurrus of sound as broken stems bent upright and the ground smoothed over, as leaves shifted back into place like glimmering green curtains.

"Whoa," said Jepar in her ear. "Good trick."

"Thanks," she whispered. "What now?"

He pushed aside some of the undergrowth that ringed them for a second before letting it fall back into place. One glimpse was enough to freeze her bones with fear.

A black-clad figure with hair that looked white at this distance. And that distance was nowhere near large enough.

She looked back to see Jepar silently shrugging out of his jacket. He gestured for her to put it on, and Chatoya obeyed, wincing as the fabric brushed her scratches. A camisole and short skirt hadn't been a good choice of clothes. For school, yes. For panicked flight? No.

His voice flowed into her head, almost calm. _We're going to have to move. They're too close for comfort._

_Then let's go. _

_I'll warn you now – we're going to get messy. _He eyed her. _Well. Messier._

Jepar wriggled through the bushes behind them, keeping low. Just before she followed him, Chatoya thought she heard the soft, determined sound of footsteps growing nearer. And for a moment – a wild, weird moment, she wanted to turn and face them, to throw down these people who'd taken so much from her, who'd torn her life into jagged scraps and wanted even the few pathetic pieces that remained.

_Toya! _said Jepar, his voice like a shaft of sunlight piercing through her. _Come on!_

The moment passed: there was pressure at her temples again, but she was as still and serene as ice. And the only sensible thing to do was run.

oOo

The morning was long. They scrambled through the maze of ghost roads, trying to leave no trace of their passing. She wove leaves and branches over their trail, dusted away their footprints with magic. The thick silence and humid air made perspiration bead along the back of her neck.

To break up their path, Jepar went through thickets of brambles, using his preternatural strength to carve a way for her, while she beckoned the plants back over them. By midday, she bore an uncanny resemblance to the Thing from the Black Lagoon, slathered in mud and grit, half the forest hopelessly lodged in her hair. Matters hadn't become any better when Jepar cut across a small brook: the debris that were washed off were soon replaced by fresh pieces of woodland, with the added bonus that she was damp as well as grimy.

But that was the least of her worries. The mercenaries crashed through the woods all around them and sometimes were so close, Chatoya could see their legs and feet from where she lay in the centre of a grove with the ground digging at her belly and the shoots clutching at her body, breathing spells of concealment.

And she wasn't afraid. She didn't weep or rail or sulk. She endured, casting grimly through her growing headache, with the pain like hot fingertips on her temples.

But surely that was better. Better than the last time she'd fled these men, when she'd emerged ragged and half-mad. Better to be stony and rational and calm, even if that was all she ever could be.

oOo

_I have good news and I have bad news. Which do you want? _She had got used to Jepar's telepathic voice by now, a warm presence in her mind.

_Good news._

_We're still alive, and we're at the way out._

_Bad news?_

_Um. It's a little unconventional._

Jepar stood – she gestured him to get down, alarmed, but he gave her a quick grin.

_It's okay. They're a couple of minutes behind. Besides, we're here. Sort of. _

He bent down to drag her out of the last in a long succession of equally painful nettle patches. Looking at the green eyes that still danced with mirth, despite the cuts on his face and dirt caking him, her spirits lifted a little.

_I'm not seeing any salvation, _she said.

What she was seeing was a small clearing in the forest, covered in long grass and with what looked like a foxhole off to one side. Green all around, and the sun breaking through to throw a frieze of white shapes onto the ground.

He stepped through the grass, taking her along with him. And to her horror...he stopped in front of the foxhole. _That's our way out. _

_The hell it is. Who do you think I am? Alice in Wonderland? Honey, if Leonardo Dicaprio hurled himself down that hole screaming he was late, I wouldn't follow him. _

_It's not what you think, _he protested. _Look, there's some of us who hunt here from time to time, even though it's Pack territory. They caught me one night. You ever had fifteen pissed-off wolves chasing you? You'll hide anywhere... _

There was a pause, as if he was remembering something. _And the fact I put their leader's shoulder out didn't really help my cause. _He gave her a dazzling smile, full of wicked charm.

He wasn't half as civilised as he pretended to be. And she didn't mind.

_I just happened to hide in there. I thought it was just an abandoned den. It's not. _

_Oh? _She left it hanging in the air.

Voices nearby. He swore softly and then glared at her. _Look, I'll go first, okay? But you promise me, you'll follow. _

_You're mad. _And there was no choice. _I promise. But there's no way you'll fit through that space, it's... _She blinked as he disappeared. That gap was only thirty centimetres wide. A lanky shapeshifter shouldn't be able to fit through it…

She hesitated a bare moment before dropping to the ground and wriggling through on her stomach. When the ground under her hands vanished, she was too slow to react: she tumbled forward, swallowing the scream she didn't dare voice-

Warm arms caught her; Jepar staggered, and they went to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. His hand clamped over her mouth, and he pulled her back...

The tunnel opening was pale above them, throwing a circle of light onto the floor. Jepar had dragged them both into the impenetrable black shadows, his arm around her, chest pressed to her back. She could feel his soft gulps of breath, the tension in his grip.

_Don't move_, he said, his mental voice barely more than a cobweb of sound.

That pale circle of light was blocked out. She huddled back into Jepar, into the only protection she had. She felt him lean his head against hers, reach for her hand and clasp it tight, his thumb stroking hers in slow, soothing motion.

The silence seemed to stretch out, beat after beat, breath after breath. She couldn't say how long their hunters stood before the hole. The murmur of voices rumbled down to them, though the words were indiscernible. It sounded like there was dissent, debate, and a decision...

Light filtered back into the cave. She felt Jepar's sigh of relief, soft on the back of her neck, and shivers prickled through her. She was aware then of how close he was, how dark it was, how easy it would be to turn in his arms and slide right into a kiss...

"Did you...say something?"

"No," she said hastily. She had forgotten he was telepathic. "You must be hearing things."

"Yeah." A pause. "I must be getting paranoid."

"It's not paranoia when they are out to get you."

His laughter was sudden and unexpected, and oddly infectious. Maybe it was just the release, but she found herself laughing along. And somewhere in it, she turned to him, or he pulled her around, and when the laughter faded and she was no longer clinging to him for support, his arms were still there, and his forehead was leaning on hers.

It was strange. Because although he was disturbingly close, although there was a curious knot in her chest made up of something like anticipation and longing, another part of her was still as chilly and pristine as an ice sculpture, watching, analysing, thinking.

Before, she'd have been a ball of tension, scared and nervous and jabbering. Now...

She thought: if I tilt my head, just a little, and he does too, we'll meet in the middle, in a kiss...

"Well," Jepar murmured, "they didn't get you - or, more to the point, me - today."

"Tomorrow is another day," she quoted. "And Scarlett didn't have those Nightworld jackals ruining her good hair day."

"Actually, I think that might have been the mud and the thorns and that stream," the shapeshifter said lightly. "I shouldn't worry - if they'd caught us, they'd have cut off a bit more than your hair."

She smiled, and wondered if he could see her in the darkness. "Why are you such an optimist?"

"You've got to be, living here," he answered and she couldn't tell if he was serious - but for a second, she could have sworn she saw dual flashes of emerald light flaring in his eyes. "You'll go mad otherwise."

She shivered. The thought was somehow chilling, as if this place was full of people balancing on the serrated line between sanity and madness, people who could cut their feet at any moment and fall.

"Are you cold?"

"No."

If I was any good at manipulating people, she thought, I'd have said yes and tried to get a little closer than this.

"Toya..." There was an odd note in his voice that she couldn't comprehend. "I can see you."

What a weird thing to say, unless…

He had read her mind.

"Oh," was all she managed. Then, weakly. "How much did you...did you hear?"

That odd, intense silence fell again. She was utterly aware of the warm touch of his hands on hers, the rush of his breath in and out, her own heartbeat sending electricity through her blood.

Then she felt him release her: and she was briefly alone in cold and darkness and it wasn't so different from the night she had run. Irrational thoughts clamoured through her – he'd leave her, there in the shadows, because he didn't need to deal with this now.

The pressure on her temples intensified until it was needle-fine, needle-sharp, emotion rising to crash against the spell. She felt her defences bowing under the weight of the fear and the loneliness, and knew that when she exhaled, the air would be carried on a scream...

And then a line of silken, unhurried force streamed down her cheekbones, soft where the pain was sharp, cool where it was fire. His hands pushed back her hair with infinite care and pushed back the darkness with it. She felt heat tingling against her mouth, felt his hesitation, the moment dizzying and endless...

And pressure melted onto her lips, a kiss sweet and slow and soft, his hands cupping her face as if to frame her, frame this.

When he lifted his head, his eyes were green glints of light in the darkness, like will o' the wisps. "Everything," he said in a voice that sounded slightly ragged. "I heard everything, Toya."

"Oh."

"Sorry," he said, rueful.

She thought about it. And then she kissed him, and felt his surprised smile. "Don't be," she said. "I'm not."

oOo

"Where are we going?" she asked. The gloom was deepening; Jepar had one arm locked around her waist as he guided her through a seemingly never-ending maze of caverns.

"I told you this place has a history. Well, I think there was an underground tunnel system once that renegade Nightpeople used to use to meet. And I think this is it."

"Renegades?" She shivered. It was cold down here, a dry iciness that hung in the air. "When were there renegades here? There's only been trouble in the Nightworld for the last decade or so."

Echoes rolled back, delicate imitations of his accent. "A lot of people think that, but it isn't true. My family have known about this place for centuries, even ruled it once and we have dozens of scrolls from those times." He paused briefly and the grip on her waist tightened. "The Old Powers were still around then. Soulmates, dragons, witch powers you wouldn't believe."

She thought of her twin brother, calling a supernova firestorm to save her. "I might."

"Well, there were rebels even then. After the great wars, the dragon Fireblade carved these tunnels. He was a pretty nasty piece of work, but he did do something useful with his life."

"This is it?" She reached out and felt rock graze jaggedly along her fingertips. "Where are we going?"

There was a smile in his voice. "I spent weeks wandering round this wretched place, trying to find where all the tunnels went. Hang on..." She heard clattering as the shapeshifter scrabbled in the darkness.

There was a click and light flooded her. She covered her eyes and blinked furiously. When the sunspots left her vision, Jepar was using an industrial torch to peer at pieces of paper he had tacked to the rock wall. "I had the sense to ask Gata to hunt around in the family vault eventually. Turned out we had a map of the damn maze. Didn't I feel stupid!"

Looking round, she could see he had stacked torches up against the wall, as well as bottles of water and dozens of photocopied maps. "Expecting to use these a lot, were you?"

He turned round and gave her that wonderful sunny smile. Nothing seemed to dishearten him for long. "It's kind of chaotic here. That's what happens when you get a couple of hundred deserters from the Nightworld and just as many angry people out for their blood."

He started walking again and she followed through the Byzantine tunnels.

"Where are we going?"

"A friend. He's near here. We might be safe there."

Might. Better than nothing, she supposed.

When they stepped out into the cool green fingers of light, Chatoya froze.

Someone was waiting for them, standing, staring, silent.

_Let's keep hiding, all quiet like  
They'll keep seeking but they won't find us  
Let's keep living a quiet life  
You and I, you and I_

oOo

Thanks for reading - comments adored!


	6. Chapter Six

Thank you so much to the sweethearts who reviewed last time! Thank you: **Starwisher, Dark Princess **and the divine **Dwayberry.**

Love to know what you think!  
Ki

**Shimmer Part Six**

_I've got to hand it to you now_  
_You're a hard one to please_  
_When it looks as though you've got all you need_  
_All the many times I've dreamed_  
_I could walk in your shoes_  
_What a nightmare it must be_  
_Just being you_

He was not having a good day.

That wasn't exactly anything new for Cougar Redfern, but the undercurrent of fear that came with his black mood was. He'd seen the car that ran Jepar and Chatoya into the woods. And he'd tried to follow, but Lisa had caught him, her fingers hard as steel.

"Don't," she said. "It won't help."

He'd turned on her, a snarl on his lips. "We can't leave them!"

"We won't." She stared him down, implacable in the face of his anger. "I've asked a friend to find them. He knows the Ghost Roads like the back of his hand. In fact, he's the reason they got the name."

"Cougar," said Sonj, flanking him. Her voice was thin and frightened. That jolted him. Nothing scared Sonj. "She's right. There's nothing we can do. Jepar hunts there, you know that. If anyone can outrun them, he can."

"Whoever _they_ are," he muttered. Little as he liked it, their logic was starting to seep through his fury.

"That's next on the list," said Lisa, her grip lessening, though she still didn't let go, as if she thought he might hare off into the woods. "Right after pretending we don't know anything about what just happened."

"You're joking."

"Cougar, these people want Chatoya. If they can't find her, what do you think they'll do next?"

The answer uncoiled like a viper in his stomach. "Find us."

"Yes. So where's safer – a nice, crowded, public school, or some dark empty woods where anyone who hears you scream won't give a damn?"

He didn't like it. But she was right. "Point taken."

So he stomped into school like he had a grudge against the ground, and tore a path through the crowds with elbows and attitude. Most people had the sense to move.

But there was always one.

"Hey!" A hand on his shoulder, rough. "Watch where you're going."

Cougar turned, and stared right into the hard eyes of Ben Skykes. It felt good to let the anger bubble over, ooze into his voice. "Make me."

They'd never got on. Sometimes Cougar thought that Ben suspected just what walked past him in the corridors every day. The rest of the time – well, the guy was a jock and oh-so popular and Cougar might just have had a disastrous date with his sister as well.

Not a recipe for everlasting friendship, in other words.

"Ben...class starts in five," said a soft voice. Sharla Ferrars edged between them like a frightened rabbit, pale behind her red curls. She gave Cougar a nervous smile. "Um. I haven't seen Jepar today. I was kind of hoping to ask him something."

Slightly flummoxed by her intrusion – couldn't she see that a fight was brewing like a storm? – Cougar glared at her. "He's got more important things to do than hang on your every word, babe."

The hurt flared on her face before she looked down. "I know that," she said in a small voice while Ben's hands curled into fists. "I just thought you might know where he is."

He didn't even know if Jepar would be alive later. Cougar quashed the worry: it was easier to be angry, to take it out on someone because otherwise he was as helpless as her, as soft and weak and human.

"Pretty sure he's avoiding you," he said smartly. "Now if you want to get out of my way, I'll do the same."

She flinched, and Ben stepped in front of her as if he could protect her.

Oh hell. Those looked like tears in her eyes. Shame curled in his stomach: she was harmless, just dumb enough to get in the way at the wrong time.

"That how you get your kicks, Redfern?" said Ben, scorn twisting his mouth. "Making girls cry?"

Nothing to do but brazen it out now. The apology curdled in his throat, overtaken by a savage need to make someone hurt, anyone. "No. I'm all about making burly men cry, but you'll have to do."

The punch Ben threw was no surprise; he caught it, but he wasn't expecting someone to kick his kneecap from behind – he staggered, and fell into a fist. Pain exploded in his jaw, and the lockers crashed against his back, then Ben was snarling in front of him. Behind him, his friends were clearly spoiling for a fight.

"Six to one, Redfern. Why don't you say sorry to the lady and we'll forget it?"

The pain peaked and started to fade, and Cougar gave them his most insolent grin. Then he saw Sharla's face over their shoulder, her teeth in her lip, so obviously trying not to cry that it stung him more than his knee or his back or his damn jaw.

He wanted to kill the guys in front of him. But her...

"How about I say sorry to the lady?" he suggested sweetly.

Ben blinked. Then nodded.

Cougar looked her straight in the eyes. "Sorry, Sharla," he said. Apologies weren't his strong suit, but he'd learned a lot since he left the enclave. "That was a crappy thing to say. If I see JJ, I'll send him your way."

"That's okay," she said, her voice thick.

The hands holding him let go. Ben and his friends turned...

Cougar cleared his throat. "Hey. Pretty sure you guys owe me an apology."

The look on Ben's face when he whipped back round was priceless. "You're not getting one."

Cougar shrugged. "Well, I know someone said sorry seems to be the hardest word, but trust me, it's nowhere near as hard as it's going to be when I kick you into next week in front of all these people."

Ben gestured to his friends. "Do the math."

"Already did," he said amiably. "I outnumber you one to six." His grin was pure danger. "But if you're too scared..."

Oldest gambit in the book. And it worked.

He dodged the first blow – it rattled the lockers, and suddenly it was chaos. It was kicks and punches and grabbing hands, shouts and thuds and a world where he didn't have to think about assassins chasing down his friend, or just who those assassins might be...

Anger, boiling up, anger bright as fire…

But underneath it, still the fear. And even the pain couldn't knock it out of him. It was in his blood.

Always in the blood.

oOo

"Iry?" said Jepar, sounding startled. And wary. "What are you doing here?"

The man gave a slow smile, empty of warmth. He looked as if he was in his thirties or forties, weathered and sinewy. His voice was low and rough. "Lookin' for you, boyo."

Jepar eased forward, just a little, so he was between her and the man. "Why?"

"Lisa called in a favour. Told me you might be in need of a bolthole."

She heard the breath Jepar let out. "Mind if I check that?"

She expected Iry to be offended – instead, his grin took on an approving slant. "You're learnin', Jubatus. Test away, but be quick about it. If you're bein' followed by who I think, we need to scram."

Jepar held out a hand. The man clasped it firmly, and the pair of them stared at each other for a long moment. Then Jepar let go, relief in every line of his body.

"He's telling the truth," he told her. "We can shelter with him."

The red gleam faded from Iry's eyes. He glanced at her with faint bemusement, as if wondering what she was doing there. "You ought t'know better than to bring a pretty piece like her on the ghost roads. Draggin' her into your mess-"

"Um. It's not me they're after," mumbled Jepar.

Those eyes focused on her, shrewd and startled. "Well, now. That's a story I want to hear. Preferably in the safety of my own home. Let's go. I've asked a few of my friends in the Pack to make a bit of ruckus for us."

"Didn't know you had any friends," said Jepar cheerfully as they followed Iry into a labyrinth of trees and twining dark creepers. The woods had become a maze of greenish tunnels, each as alike as the next.

"Friends. People too frightened to say no. It's much of a muchness," Iry said, but his tone was dry. "An' I don't think you're in any position to lecture me about my social status, boyo, 'cause right now you seem short of friends y'self. "

"You said you know who's chasing us?" Chatoya asked.

Her head was thumping miserably, but she felt no fear. That was good: it left her mind clear and cool, able to erase their tracks with an efficiency that was a little surprising. She should have been drained of magic by now, but she felt as fresh as if she'd just awoken.

Iry looked over his shoulder, nose wrinkled. "I don't know for sure. It's an educated guess. Strangers arrive in town, people start to talk. Now you, you're just a scrap of a witch. But men show up with death in their eyes, an' suddenly there's legends on everyone's lips, an' a lot of frightened people who thought they'd outrun their past."

"Which legends?" said Jepar, but from his tone, he already knew.

Iry did not answer for a long time. When he did, his voice was barely more a breath, as if the leaves themselves could spread the secret, as if the very air was a danger to them.

"The Furies."

oOo

"What happened this time?"

Cougar looked up into Lisa's exasperated face. "Same thing that happens every time," he said grumpily. The ache on his ribs was creeping away, but he hadn't bothered to clean off the blood on his mouth. For one thing, it hid the fact his cut lip had already healed.

She raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess – you opened your mouth."

He scowled. "Not exactly."

She sat down beside him on the sloping hill. They were out of sight of the classroom windows here. It was a good place to lurk if you wanted to cut class, which he had to every time he got in a fight. People got suspicious if you got pounded by half a dozen guys and walked away without so much as a scratch.

"Go on then," she said wryly. "Tell me your side."

He floundered. No matter what angle he chose, he came out looking like a jerk.

Finally, he shot her a sideways look, and admitted, "I opened my mouth."

Lisa sighed. "You're an idiot."

"We already knew that," came a new voice. Sonj strode up, slinging down her bag as if she was trying to gouge a hole in the grass. "Why the hell did you pick on Sharla? She's about the only one of Ellie Saxoine's crowd who doesn't treat us like crap."

"Now that's not fair," murmured Lisa. "Sometimes they just pretend we don't exist. Although it sounds like today they were trying to make sure Cougar didn't."

"No," said Sonj. "Not to start with." She looked directly at him, and there was bemusement in her face. "Ben gave you an out. You wanted to fight, and I don't know why."

And he couldn't ignore it – the nasty, niggling truth that the pain and adrenaline had driven away. He was scared. He wouldn't say that, though, so he said shortly, "It was easy."

"But-"

"Sonj, leave it," Lisa said. Her smile was wan. "I've been on edge myself. Have you heard anything from Jepar or Chatoya?"

The dread came back. "No," he muttered.

She took a deep breath. "Then I think we need to see if we can find them. Can you look for him? You're stronger than me."

The request startled him. As a rule, they had agreed not to use any sort of power that someone might notice unless they absolutely had to. There were too many unknown powers floating around that might be listening to any mind-to-mind conversation. It was a risk.

But Jepar was his friend. He was the closest thing to a brother Cougar had these days.

"Of course, babe," he said.

He threw out his thoughts like a fisherman casting into water.

_JJ? You there?_

A long pause, while Cougar cast around to check no one else was listening. No one that he could sense, anyway.

_Just about_, came a weary voice. Jepar was a flare of green, like the echo of light in an emerald, and familiar in the way only a friend could be. _It's been a weird day._

_Is Chatoya with you?_

_Yeah... _Something odd in JJ's mind then. Some sort of indefinable emotion related to the witch. Almost a sensation of being caught between concern, yearning and...oh...

_You kissed her?_

_Um..._

_Not sure you've got your priorities straight, JJ. First escape the crazy killers, then get the girl._

_My priorities are just fine!_ He could sense Jepar shoving hair out of his eyes and for a split second got a clear glimpse of a spacious room and two other people. One was close, staring at the shapeshifter with eyes that were the colour of moss, and causing all kinds of warm, disturbing and fuzzy feelings in Jepar's head.

The other was someone Jepar respected and grudgingly liked. A man that Cougar had last seen as he ran away from him, hoping like hell he didn't get caught. As all the pieces clicked together, he groaned aloud.

_JJ, have you gone completely insane? What are you doing in Iry Lupine's house? He hates us!_

_I think that's just you actually,_ came back the unfazed reply. _And it's him or the assassins._

_Between the block and a hard case. I get it. You lost them, then?_

_Think so._ Then Jepar said, _Iry might know who they were.._

_Who?_

_The Furies._

And Cougar felt his blood run cold. Because he knew that name, knew it with sickening intimacy. To most people, the Furies were scary stories, faceless monsters.

But he had a face to put to the name.

_You haven't lost them,_ he said. Panic coursed through him like electricity, painting the world in terrible clarity. _You don't lose the Furies, not that easily._

_Calm down_, said Jepar, sounding puzzled. _This place is like Fort Knox._ Cougar caught glimpses of bars on the windows, bolts on the doors, but it was no reassurance.

There was nowhere to run. They had shut themselves into a trap.

The warning was boiling in his thoughts – he had to tell them-

Agonising pain slammed into his skull, red-hot and relentless. He couldn't scream, even in the sudden solitude of his own mind. Dimly, he was aware that he had fallen, that Sonj was beside him, flooding him with what little healing power she possessed, that Lisa had his hands in an iron grip.

And so they all heard the voice. It was beautiful and sharp and vicious, like a machete gleaming under sunlight. And young; surely this was someone no older than themselves.

_Careful now. Don't spoil my sport._ The pain blew away like cobwebs in a breeze and suddenly Cougar could think again, feel again. He sucked in huge breaths and still felt like there wasn't enough air in the world. _You have no idea what that girl is._

And with a dull shock, Cougar recognised that arrogant voice, so akin to his own. _Blue?_

Menacing, calculated silence. _This one's for old times, brother. But I've warned you once; next time, there won't be a warning._

The connection severed, and the three of them were left staring at one another.

"Your brother?" Sonj whispered. "You never-"

"I know," he said briefly. There wasn't time, there was no time. They had to get to Jepar and Chatoya. "But this isn't the time, Lise. He's found them. We have to help – they can't stop him, not on their own. They don't know what he is."

"He's just a boy..." said Lisa, soft, confused.

He didn't know how haunted his eyes were, full of the past, full of fear. "He's a Fury, Lisa."

She paled. Sonj looked from one to the other, and said, "What's a Fury?"

"They're assassins," he said. "But Blue, he's different. He doesn't just kill. He doesn't care about money. And he's not in it for the power."

Sonj couldn't stop her awful, curious question. "Then what is he in it for?"

Cougar licked his lips. "The pleasure," he answered in a voice that had the hush of the grave. "Blue likes to play."

_Don't hate me 'cause I'm just that good_  
_A little misunderstood_  
_You made me, so I'm just that good_

oOo

Thanks for reading! Comments adored.


	7. Chapter Seven

Enormous thanks to the lovely people who commented on the last part - thank you **Dwayberry** and **Meg.**

Lyrics taken from the deliciously spooky _Goodnight Moon _by Shivaree (Album: I Oughtta Give You A Shot In The Head for Making Me Live In THis Dump. Yes. It really is called that.)

**Shimmer Part Seven**

_There's a shark in the pool and a witch in the tree  
There's a crazy old neighbour and he's been watching me  
And there's footsteps loud and strong coming down the hall_

_Something's under the bed - now it's out in the hedge  
There's a big black crow sitting on my window ledge  
And I hear something scratching through the wall_

Watching Iry Lupine secure his home was an education. First came the locks on the door – five of them, a gleaming array of metal. Then came the shutters on the windows, thicker than one might expect in a normal home and fitted with yet more formidable locks. As he moved around the house, they heard the clicks and clanks of other bolts.

The house itself was worn and cosy, like a pair of old slippers. Everything was in earthy colours, browns and bronzes and muted greens. Wooden shelves filled with dust-crowned books lined one side of the living room,.

On the opposite wall, he'd affixed weapons: a heavy notched sword, an old rifle, and blades made of wood and what looked to be iron. They could be easily lifted from their brackets, she noted, and all were clean, as if they were well-tended.

Chatoya had to wonder what the werewolf was so afraid of.

He came back in with the air of a man waiting out a siege. "Well, the old place is locked down tight as I can. That'll buy us a bit of time if they find us."

"How much?" said Jepar, sounding nervous.

Iry shrugged. "Not a lot. But it might make the difference. There's a tunnel in my cellar that leads back into the woods. I've called a couple of my friends, asked 'em to check the way out's clear. I get the go-ahead, you scarper."

"You said the Furies might be after us." Chatoya pronounced the word carefully, not sure she'd heard him right. "Who are they?"

Those grey eyes met hers, startled. "You ain't heard of the Furies?"

"They're Greek legends, aren't they?" she said, though she had the feeling that wasn't what he meant.

"Well, yeah, that's where the name came from. Vengeance gods. But when you or me say the Furies, we're talkin' about Nightfire, K'Shaia and Pursang."

She looked at him blankly.

"You've never..." He shook his head. "You've led a quiet life."

The words should have stung, perhaps. But she only said, "Until recently."

"They're mercenary organisations, darlin'," he said. "And every member is an assassin. No one outside knows too much about 'em an' they like it that way. They train to kill from when they're kids an' all the mercy an' all the softness is beaten out of 'em by the time they're ready. They're very, very expensive because they're the best in the Nightworld. Or the worst, dependin' on how you look at it."

"They don't just kill," said Jepar, his voice low. When she glanced over his face was taut. "They're trained to get information too. My dad...my dad once had a woman come to him. Her husband had been tortured by them and she wanted his help. He went with her, but he came back that night. Said there was nothing he could do." Anguish flared in his eyes. "I saw him on the porch later with my mom. He cried. He said that what they'd done...how they'd left that man..." He took a deep breath. "They made my dad helpless. I didn't know anyone could do that."

And they wanted her. They thought she knew where the spell was, when she knew nothing at all.

"You need to get out of Ryars Valley," said Iry, solemn.

"And then what?" she demanded. "Run forever?"

He only looked back, his eyes sad.

"I have to fight them, don't I?" she mumbled. "I have to fight them and I have to win. People must have stopped them before."

"It's happened," said Iry, his tone holding a certain amount of scepticism. "But not often. An' not recently. The Furies'd need a very good reason to stop huntin' you."

She met his eyes, as cold and implacable as winter. "Then I'd better find one, hadn't I?"

oOo

Jepar was trying to control his rising panic. He was trying to banish the memory of his father's distraught face. If there was one thing he knew, it was not to mess with the Furies.

Even Iry Lupine, a born survivor, could give them no better advice than to run.

Worse, Cougar had vanished from their conversation without so much as a word. That was unlike him.

So, anxious, he reached out through the valley to try and find the vampire.

_Cougar?_

_JJ!_ That familiar voice sounded drained. _Go away! He's looking for you, get the hell away-_

And someone new cut in – a soft, vicious whisper that had the ring of triumph.

_Too late. Looks like curiosity may not kill the cat, but it's certainly an accessory_

The connection was chopped off. Jepar was jolted back to the living room, his heart wild and pounding.

"They know where we are," he gasped.

One look at him and Iry's face hardened. "Don't tell me you were dumb enough to have a stroll on the astral plane while armed bastards are chasin' you!"

"I didn't think..."

"Yeah, that's obvious. Right. No time to waste – you two need to get down to the cellar. Come on!" Iry was out the door in a flash – they followed him into the kitchen where he moved a cabinet to reveal a hatch in the floor, as covered in locks as every other way into the house.

He crouched down to slide the first bolt – and they heard it.

oOo

_Rat-a-tat-tat._

It echoed off the tiles, a hollow, sinister sound. And it came from the trapdoor.

Iry froze. His lips skinned back to bare a wolf's sharp teeth. With a twist of his wrist, he slammed the bolt shut again. And in its wake came the knocking, faster, more desperate.

_Rat-a-tat-tat._

"They've found us, haven't they?" Chatoya said, the pressure on her temples like pincers. She breathed through the pain, ignoring it. Pain was better than panic.

"Looks like. Guess we fight." Iry's eyes were gleaming red. He brushed by them, back into the living room. "Knew there was a reason I kept them weapons sharp."

"You don't have to do this," said Jepar, his voice hesitant. "You could hand us over."

Part of her cursed him for his softness as Iry stopped, back rigid. Yes, of course he could: of course he probably should. But if they had to face down the Furies, she would rather do it with a werewolf at her side.

"Only if he wants to explain why he did it," she said into the uneasy silence that followed. "Lisa will ask."

"Enough." The one word was a bark. "Leave the guilt trip, darlin'. I'll fight with you because I choose to, because it's right, no hamhanded manipulatin' needed."

"She's not-" began Jepar.

Iry cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Not important now. Arm up, children. It's about to get interestin'."

Arm up. She wanted to laugh. She'd never held a weapon in her life. But she drew down a wooden knife from the wall. It felt odd in her hand, too heavy, the hilt worn smooth from use. From the kitchen, the knocking continued until her nerves were on edge from it, waiting for whatever must come.

_Rat-a-tat-_

Iry slammed the door on shut on the noise. With no great surprise, she saw that this too was barricaded just as thoroughly as everything else. Once he'd secured it, the werewolf took down a couple of guns and that big, scary sword.

Jepar looked as nervous as her, but he checked over the gun he'd taken as if he knew what he was doing.

"Right. You kids watch the front. I'll handle whatever's goin' to come through the kitchen." Iry faced the door, light on his feet.

There wasn't anything else to do but obey. She wished she knew better spells, fiercer ones. What little battle magic she'd learned had been for scraps and duels, not for this. Not for life or death.

An almighty crash boomed through the kitchen. She flinched, half-turning before she remembered that wasn't what she was supposed to do.

"There goes the hatch," muttered Iry.

Then another noise broke past her harsh breath. Grating metal, then a click.

Her eyes fixed on the door. One by one, the bolts were undoing themselves. "Jepar..." she whispered.

"I see it." He was there in a trice, tugging at them. "They won't close!"

"Get back," she bit out, seeing with sudden clarity the door bursting open, throwing him across the room. "We have to be ready!"

Something hit the other door as Jepar retreated, his face white as milk. Iry swore.

The last bolt slid back.

The door swung open, letting in a dazzling lance of sunlight. She blinked, trying to clear her vision-

And she saw him.

His hair was what she noticed first. It had to be; short, spiky and a shade of blue that stood out like a flame, it was lurid against his white skin. He was as pale as if he'd never seen the sunlight, as if his whole world was shadows and nightfall.

And then she met his eyes.

They were a stark, luminous blue: as cold and bright as dawn over the North Pole, and empty of compassion. And she was suddenly free of pain, free of everything, because there was something dizzying in his stare, like looking down over a chasm and wondering what was in the darkness beneath, what she'd see if she fell...

A gun exploded next to her – she jumped, breaking the deadlock.

Then she saw him more clearly: a boy no older than her, his face as sculpted and sharply defined as marble, and every bit as empty of humanity. He hadn't flinched from the bullet buried in the doorframe.

"Leave us alone," said Jepar, his voice somewhere between a shout and snarl.

The boy leaned on the doorframe, casual, fearless. The arrogance in his voice reminded her of Cougar. "Hand her over and I will."

"What do you want from me?" she said.

His eyelids lowered, and there was a sinful purr to his voice. "Secrets, witch. All the secrets you don't want to tell me."

"I don't have any secrets," she said, her voice flat. The headache was vanishing every time she looked at him. That wasn't right: _he _wasn't right.

"Lie to yourself if you want." His mouth curved, the smile small and meaningless. "We'll find the truth if we have to peel it off your bones."

"Cute." Iry's voice came from behind her. "Just like you. Sure you kids are old enough to be out on your own?"

She saw then what he had noticed: the others behind the boy were young too, all of them no older than herself and Jepar. They couldn't be fully-trained assassins, surely?

The boy didn't take umbrage. "Old enough. Smart enough. And definitely dangerous enough." He straightened, and the knives he drew gleamed as bright as his smile. "Can't say the same for you, it seems. You were easy to find."

Those hungry eyes moved to her: she was caught again, pinned again, sinking under the emptiness of his stare.

When his voice sprang into her mind, she gasped. The words were soft, intimate, silky._ Shame on you, Chatoya Irkil. A girl with power should know how to conceal it._

_Power?_ She felt her lips move but no sound came out. Her head was spinning.

_Power. It's in you, isn't it, and they wonder what they see, these fools and liars. They think it's vulnerability, or courage, or hope. None of them see what's really there._

She heard Jepar, as if from a great distance. "Toya!"

_Nothing's there. I'm just a witch._

_Very cunning. Your conviction is almost believable. But do you know what I see when I look at you?_

She shook her head, quelled by the knowledge that swirled like riptides in his eyes. He had seen people die, watched them while he smiled his cold, perfect smile and spoke his cold, perfect words. This was not someone who lived, but who merely observed, who held all he saw in contempt.

Contempt is dangerous, she thought. It takes away the part of us that has any sort of compassion. And it leaves us like him.

He stepped forward: she couldn't move, helpless as a fly thrashing in a web. Then arms wrapped around her, dragged her back until she was pressed to Jepar. And he was real, warm, here. She drank in that strength, that fearless faith.

In the boy's blue eyes, worlds spun and dropped into darkness.

"A mirror," he whispered.

And she was afraid, because Chatoya understood then that she couldn't break the spell he held over, because he didn't hold her by fear or power. He held her by something she had never thought she would find in the eyes of an ice-blooded killer.

He held her by understanding.

He could see the part of her that had no compassion. The part that matched him, emptiness for emptiness, that was shadows and nightfall and chasms.

His lips parted-

And the door from the kitchen crashed open. Iry yowled and raised the sword – only to lower it as Cougar, Lisa and Sonj tumbled through, dirty and dishevelled.

Cougar dusted himself off and gave the room a fanged, angelic smile. "Little bro!" he said as it clicked just why the boy looked so familiar. Same sullen mouth, same chiselled face. And it looked like the attitude was a genetic hand-me-down too. "You have really upped your brand of creepy smack-talk in the last year. A mirror, huh. Good analogy. Seven out of ten. Not sure about the sidekicks though. And the black. It's a little bit, uh, ninja turtle."

The boy's expression was one of distaste. "Have you actually interrupted my massacre to offer fashion advice?"

Those gold eyes were fierce, but she noticed Cougar's hands were clenched behind his back and trembling. "Nah. I interrupted it to kick your ass."

"Another bad decision in a long line of them," said the boy acidly. "How delightful to see that your poor judgement is still getting people killed."

Those words made Cougar flinch, but he didn't back off. "Weird. Could have sworn that was you, Blue. Hear you're getting famous."

The boy's smile gleamed, and it was all ice and spite. "Infamous. Whereas as you have what to your name, exactly?"

"My aim," said Cougar, and hurled something that whipped past in a shiny blur.

There was a sound, like a ball hitting a glove. Blue had caught the knife.

By the blade.

She stared, disbelieving.

"Very amusing," commented Blue. "And very stupid."

"Six of us," snapped Cougar. "Three of you."

"I can see I'm a little outnumbered here," Blue said. For a second, Chatoya thought she glimpsed surrender, capitulation in his stance. Then his glance swung to her again and she felt the force there pin her to the spot. "And I thought...so what?"

And then there was chaos.

oOo

There were only four of them, but they fought like demons. The air was a dervish of knives and fists and feet. She somehow blocked the first blow with the knife she held, and felt her stomach churn when blood splattered the air before the assassins slapped her so hard she spun in the side of a sofa.

The space was too small for the anarchy contained within it. Cougar and his brother were locked in a battle that seemed intensely personal, intensely vicious. It was snarling teeth, blows driven by hatred and memories, unending. Then Blue kicked out Cougar's feet from under him: he was on his back, and throat bared as Blue raised the knife for the final stroke-

Sonj grabbed his arm in a desperate dive and they tumbled away. Her elbow connected with his face: fire crackled from her fingers in silver light and he hit her into a wall. She staggered, gasping.

Chatoya thought she was dead then – and so did Cougar. "Sonj!"

There was anguish in that cry, need, emotion thick as blood.

And it made Blue pause. He looked at Sonj, thoughtful, as if she had suddenly become interesting. His fist connected with her jaw: she slumped, out cold, a heap of red hair and limp limbs.

Someone grabbed Chatoya – she reacted, magic blasting through her hands. It was enough to throw them back but nothing more. Then she saw the knife slicing down towards her.

She was no longer in Iry Lupine's house, but in a dark street, watching her twin die. Time became glutinous, the world sharpening around her to crystal clarity, and at its apex was the knife.

There was only this.

She could see every detail on the blade, every glint and scratch and notch.

Just light and lines.

In that instant, she understood how Blue had caught that knife. Only light and lines. Light and lines couldn't hurt her. It was so easy, just to reach out to that slowly falling blade, to clasp her hand around light and lines, which shouldn't, wouldn't, _couldn't _hurt her.

She blinked and suddenly she was back in the midst of the turmoil, holding a knife by the blade while a boy clad in black stared at her with obvious shock. All she could see of him were his eyes, a shade of dove-grey, and they were filled with fear.

He was afraid of her.

She mustn't lose the advantage. And Chatoya knew exactly what to do. She had watched a master of the art hold a roomful of people spellbound.

She let her mouth curve up in a small, secretive smile. Magic blossomed in her skin until she glowed with it, until unseen wind lifted her hair into a swirl of black.

Horror grew in his eyes. She was more than a girl then: she was alien and unfathomable. She was the death he had not considered, and for that brief moment, she owned him. In his eyes, the possibilities multiplied, each more grotesque than the last – fire, flaying, she could do anything...

Chatoya kicked him.

He went over with a scream that sounded more relieved than pained and she took the opportunity to kick him in the ribs, the neck and finally the head several times. It might not have been elegant, but it was efficient.

Metres away, she saw Jepar smile briefly as he threw someone over his shoulder with ease and moved to slam a very dishonourable punch at the next person in line. Lisa had his back, moving with the grace of a dancer.

"Very clever," she heard a voice say. It was her only warning before a relentless grip seized her - she was spun, staggering. Before she could recover, Blue had a knife at her throat, his back to the wall, her body a shield.

Paralysis washed over her like a waterfall. And it felt like fear, this coldness, this churning as she met his heartless eyes, but she wasn't sure it was.

What she saw made her want to die because even death was better than what she saw in his stare. She recognised it then: that clarity, that practicality, that emptiness.

It was what she saw in the mirror every morning.

_Well, you're up so high  
How can you save me?  
When the dark comes in tonight to take me  
Up to my front walk and into the bed  
Where it kisses my face and eats my head…_

oOo


	8. Chapter Eight

Sorry this has taken a while. I'm back at school (oh, the evil!), so parts may actually be a little more regular now 'cause I'm no longer getting up at 5am to kill myself working. :-) Thank you to these angelic amazingnesses (it is a word in my world.): and it took me a while to figure out that they had cut off my review alert option.  
  
Meg: Thanks for the encouragement!  
  
Spellcial: Um, I kind of fell down on the soon factor there but while I'm down anyway, I'm not averse to doing some begging for forgiveness - sorry it took so long, and thank you!  
  
Night Goddess: The rest is on my hard drive. I just totally forgot I'd posted this (I'm like a goldfish. Three second memory, mind the size of a full stop.) Thank you ;-) I like writing...maybe one day, if I'm *exceedingly* lucky, it could be a career. Well ,everyone needs a dream - thank you, chica!  
  
Kay: Thanks :-) I'm thrilled you enjoyed! Sorry this took so long...I'm an idiot.  
  
Carina: Thank you! I'm elated that you like it (I had fun writing it, it was escape from work in general and maths in particular.) I hope you enjoy the rest, thank you!  
  
Comments - as you may well have guessed - are utterly adored, savoured and cherished. Clones of Heath Ledger will be mailed to all of you as soon as I've cracked his DNA code...  
  
Hope you enjoy!   
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Eight  
  
What did you do when someone was holding a knife to your throat?  
  
It was, Chatoya had to admit, one of the big questions. True, not quite up there with 'Why am I here?' or 'Is there a God?' but definitely above the league of 'What colour socks should I wear?'  
  
And now she had an answer.  
  
Nothing. He held, as it were, the advantage. It was as if they were trapped in a bubble where time had stopped, wrapped and cocooned from the madness of the world outside. The world that was fighting a dozen or so determined assassins who wanted...her. And it seemed they had her, too.  
  
"Enough of this," the boy said. He didn't need to raise his voice; the dark, pitiless tones cut the air like a honed knife. He was dazzling; that was the only word she had for his blend of startling good looks and ancient, unchanging eyes. But it was the beauty of a cobra. "Stop your ridiculous little fights. It's finished."  
  
Around them, people stopped fighting. They stared. She couldn't see their faces, but she could see their reflections, reduced to insignificance in the gleam of the boy's eyes. That was how he saw them. Nothing.   
  
"Well, fun though this has been," he drawled, "I'm on a contract here, not to mention a time bonus." His eyes flicked dismissively to the black-clad figures. "Kill them if you want. But there's no money in it."   
  
And in one fluid motion she felt him catch her, spin her as she glimpsed the carelessly cold smile he wore, above those eyes that had no laughter. Only flat contempt. And then the icy kiss of metal was on her skin.   
  
She closed her eyes, pushing back the tide of memory, pushing back the fear. It was easier than she had thought. It just seemed to dissipate, leaving an iron core of calm, of acceptance. Not of hope. Part of her understood that the spell to suppress her emotions was becoming stronger; beginning to affect her more.  
  
"You've been most worthy opponents, really." The false tones said otherwise. "But this is getting tedious."  
  
Black hatred on Cougar Redfern's face as he glared at the boy - his brother. Chatoya suspected he was furious because he felt powerless. And she understood his feelings utterly.  
  
She looked at Jepar; what she saw nearly made her lose the slender cobweb of sanity she was holding on to. He was ashen, that chalky colour of extreme shock. There was blood running down one side of his face and it flared against his skin like crimson candle wax on white paper. But it was the look in his emerald eyes. As if he was already in hell, as if he knew the end of the nightmare and couldn't wake up from it.  
  
It was too close to what she might have felt if she let the fear take over.  
  
So she looked away. It hurt, but she looked away. Even the knife was better than that.  
  
"You think we'll just walk out and leave her with you?" Sonj Jameson with her hard, boyish voice and fighting stance. Thank you, Chatoya thought. Thank you for trying, but you're wasting your time.  
  
The flat of the knife slid over her throat in a gliding caress. "I don't think you have any choice," he sighed.  
  
"Oh, don't you?" The one eye of the redhead leapt with silver sparks.  
  
Pain flicking over her throat. Chatoya gasped, felt warmth on her neck against the ice of the blade.  
  
When he spoke again, all the amiability was gone. And what was left...not a voice. Voices had emotion, had feelings, had something other than his flat, controlled tones.  
  
"Let's end this little charade now. You can all go home and spend your lives searching for the redeeming social values in this encounter and I'll take the girl and kill her. You can go home and mourn. You can go home and throw a party if you want. I would if someone killed this waste of space. But you go and you go now before I stop being civil and start wondering what the inside of her intestines look like. Got it?"  
  
For once, Sonj was wordless. She looked around for help and saw only uncertainty reflected back.  
  
"And, little redhead...?" Her attention snapped back to him and Chatoya could see blank terror in the girl's face. "Shooting at me wasn't very polite. The favour will be repaid, rest assured."  
  
Silence. Chatoya looked from one face to another, people she had once seen as inhuman and alien. Who now were more human than she had ever seen them.   
  
"Out," the boy said softly. "*Now*."  
  
They obeyed. What other choice did they have?  
  
****  
  
Except for one.  
  
Jepar Jubatus didn't move. He simply tilted up his head and met the boy's gaze with eyes that were no longer the soft green of spring, but the shade of jade buried in ice. "No."  
  
Pain again, the knife whipping up her cheekbone. She wrenched in his grip involuntarily, felt tears welling and tried, tried to force them back. But gods, it hurt so much! She could feel her heartbeat speed, her breathing change into choking gasps.   
  
"She has a whole face I can carve up," the boy murmured. "I'm really quite skilled at torture."  
  
"Yeah, he used to sing in the bath." Cougar had slunk back in unnoticed and now she could see something oddly vulnerable in his face. "What do you want with her, Blue? She's just some goddamn witch."  
  
"Is that what you believe?" She felt the boy shrug. "You're still a stupid optimistic fool. Now get out."  
  
Cougar shook his head, the gold light in his eyes dimming to show the subtle hazel colour Chatoya had only seen once. And now it became clear. He was afraid. But he wasn't going to leave, either.  
  
The boy tilted his head and she felt the brush of his breath on her ears, making her shudder with revulsion as the knife sliced into her ear. She let a sob escape at the agonising pain. "Next I'll start cutting pieces off." His colourless tones so close to her ears she flinched away. "Which hand don't you need?"  
  
"You wouldn't..." No conviction in his voice. The vampire looked so young then, with his black hair stark against his skin and the taut line of his mouth.   
  
"Remember Ruby?" Blue drawled as she felt him lift her wrist. Black leather gloves, black handled knife. Icy blue blade; it kept with the theme; black attire, black shoes, black heart. "She had a pretty voice. Lovely singer. Better screamer." Low, almost sensual laugh. "And oh, she screamed."  
  
"Go to hell." Cougar's voice shook with rage; his eyes were gold again.  
  
"Nice place to visit. Wouldn't want to live there," the boy said cheerfully and laughed. He was tracing veins on her wrist. "This is your main artery," he told her. "When I cut through that, there'll be a lot of blood and you may feel the urge to scream or faint. Do either and I'll cut off the other hand."  
  
Jepar's hand clenched until the knuckles were white. His voice was perfectly even. "Hurt her and-"  
  
"What? You'll kill me? Please, terrify me with your verbal ferocity."   
  
Jepar didn't twitch a muscle. "If you hurt her, death will be the last of your worries."  
  
"And dry-cleaning my first?" the vampire said. "You're pathetic. Not to mention boring. Just get out."  
  
The shapeshifter glared. "You wouldn't dare," he snarled. "All talk, just like every Redfern."  
  
"Just...get...out..." Blue said with exaggerated patience. With each word, he twisted her wrist around. On the last it snapped like twigs breaking; she screamed and then Jepar did flinch, rage leaping in his eyes.  
  
"Go," she mouthed to him. Were there tears on her face? She couldn't feel them. Dizziness swamped her until she recalled his words and drew on that icy inner strength that should never have existed.  
  
~ Toya... ~ Everything in that one word; a rush of protectiveness, of horror, a maelstrom of emotions she couldn't quite catch.  
  
~ Jepar, *go*. ~ She met his eyes squarely. ~ I don't want him to hurt me. And he is. Because of you. ~  
  
Something died in his eyes when he said that. She didn't want to see him suffer in any way, but if this was the only way to make him leave, then so be it. ~ He'll kill you. ~  
  
~ He'll kill me anyway. ~ One beat as they stared at each other, then defeat settled in his eyes. ~ But...~  
  
~ Go! ~  
  
He went.  
  
****  
  
The door slammed and they were alone. The boy spun her around again, so she could see the proud lines of his face, the endless calm of his eyes. The hooked, shiny blade slithered to her throat and she felt pain again for a stark instant. Then he pushed her down into a chair, the blade following her fall.  
  
"Just a warning," he said calmly. "One word of a spell and I'll cut your throat. Understand?"  
  
"Don't ask stupid questions," she said sharply.   
  
The part of her that was bright, burning and livid at this situation had taken over. The fear was locked away with her grief, banished under reams of enchantment that she hadn't wanted but now, was glad of. But her wrist throbbed with pain that radiated through her body, her throat stung from the cuts, she was messy and she just wanted this to be over, one way or another.  
  
His eyes widened fractionally. "You're not afraid of me..." he said with something close to wonder. "Well, well, that's certainly a first." That cruel laugh. "That should add spice...this will be more fun than usual. It's so frustrating when they're afraid. They're so unresponsive."   
  
She drew in a harsh breath. "Torture, murder, rape. Is there anything you stop at?"  
  
His eyes had darkened to pure black; hunger lurked there, a cold lust she didn't want to consider. "I'm not in the business of rape," he informed her coolly. "Cannibalism's far more fun. Any other questions?" Scorn hot in his voice. "Get them over with...and don't try any of those entertaining verbal diversions. I've heard it all before. Then it will be *my* turn to ask questions. And you'll answer. I promise you that."  
  
"Why don't you wear a mask?" Play for time, she thought. That's all you've got.   
  
"Masks are for cowards." His eyes drew her in, still and fathomless as glaciers; she wondered what dangers lay slumbering beneath the depths. Any semblance of someone who felt remorse? Who felt guilt, horror, grief for what they had done? "I don't need to. I have no shame or fear about what I do." Hooded eyes looking her over slowly, callously. "I leave that to you. You saw how scared my brother was."  
  
She watched his face carefully as he spoke about Cougar. No change. No flash of recognition, of shame or even of pride. "Doesn't that bother you?"  
  
His mouth curled with derision. "I think you're confusing me with someone who cares."  
  
She tilted her head, forgetting the blade that was there for an instant. In the calm of her soul, it was easy to be objective, even to be curious. And this strange boy intrigued her with his sane, indifferent gaze and subtle, barbed words. "I think you're afraid."  
  
He laughed and she thought of rocks tumbling, the rocks that start an avalanche. "Afraid? I lost all my fear long ago, witch girl."   
  
"No." That one word stopped his laughter suddenly; a muscle tensed in his arm. "You're afraid. I know it."  
  
"Really?" Pain. "*I* think someone needs their second sight testing. Pray tell, how do you know?"  
  
She didn't. That was the problem. It was just intuition. And when no answer was imminent, the icy stare deepened. "Don't try to play psyche games with me," he told her. One finger scraped across the cut on her cheekbone, causing swift, shooting agony before the knife leapt up to widen the cut in pain so exquisitely sharp her eyes were crushed shut, every breath shaking. "The price of losing is high. And you will lose."  
  
She opened her eyes, letting the spell absorb the pain. "Don't be so sure."  
  
"Finally the charade ends. You're rather cunning, aren't you? Pretending to play the fragile, fearful maiden in there. Getting even my imbecilic brother - who, let's face it, still has large portions of moral fibre missing, despite whatever scruples he's managed to catch since he ran away - to stand up for you."  
  
"I haven't manipulated anyone," she said scornfully. "And if you can't understand that you don't have to trick people to make them care for you, well, I pity you."  
  
That blade flashed, dangerously close to her left eye and she felt the familiar pain. She couldn't stop herself from flinching back, but didn't look away. "Save your pity for yourself," the boy advised.   
  
"Do you enjoy hurting people who can't fight back?" Chatoya asked. She couldn't fathom how anyone could live in such icy, empty hell. Spending day after day cutting away other people's lives, destroying, killing, torturing, never knowing anything but the knife. And the knife had only one answer for everything.  
  
"I'm good at what I do." Eyes immeasurable as the ocean, touched with the cold of deep space. "And what I do is kill. They pay me large amounts of money for it; and *because* they pay me large amounts of money, I don't care who I kill." Then that serpentine, infinitesimal smile. "But since you ask, yes, I do enjoy it." Glints as he spun the blade. "You will find no better song than the sound of screams."   
  
"Now *why* didn't they call the musical that?" Chatoya muttered, her fear draining away in magick.  
  
Teeth showed. "Humans like to delude themselves." They heard someone shout outside. He stretched lazily, the blade brushing her throat. "The minions are still fighting outside. How quaint. How...pointless."  
  
Distracted, she thought. His attention had been off her for a moment. And that was all she needed. So be patient, she told herself. Wait for him to get diverted again, then act. One shot, that's all there will be because this guy is *sharp*. There's nothing else for him to be.  
  
Be patient.  
  
****  
  
"I got to ask," Sonj hissed at Cougar as she backed away from the man holding what looked suspiciously like a battle-axe, of all things. "Why are we still hanging around here?"  
  
Cougar slammed a foot into someone's shoulder, putting all his anger behind it. "What?"  
  
"Well, we're not helping Toya, are we? And this fight is really starting to hurt."  
  
He paused and nearly lost a hand to the idiot with the axe. "Good point." He looked around. Lisa was being harassed by three determined assassins who were discovering she wasn't as vulnerable as she looked, while Iry - who, much to his surprise, had stuck around - still had that savage grin gleaming on his teeth.   
  
"Well," the redhead said through gritted teeth, "why *are* we still here?"  
  
Cougar threw a glance over his shoulder and found out. "Jepar."  
  
The lamia had never seen his friend like this before. The emerald eyes were glowing like someone had stoked fires in them, bright against the blood he was losing due to a certain lack of technique. Mind you, the people fighting him were losing anything they put in his way, so...  
  
"I am not going to get killed because of his mental problems," Sonj snapped back. "What made him snap, anyway? I don't like this, but you don't see *me* practising my massacring procedure."  
  
"That's practice?" Cougar murmured and pushed the girl aside as the axe swung. "I'm getting *sick* of that axe. Look," he continued, dodging a thrown knife. "Him and Toya...he's sort of attached to her."  
  
"Jepar?" she squeaked, and picking up the knife, lobbed it at the nearest Nightperson, who promptly screamed and stopped moving. "Hmm. Must have been silver." She returned to the subject at hand. "But Jepar? Come on, Cougar. He's managed to turn down every girl, Nightworld or human, in our year so far. Why's he going to fall for someone like Chatoya?"  
  
He shrugged. "I don't know."  
  
The one grey eye glared at him. "Well, I know that I don't want to stay around to find out the end of a fight I'm losing. Just grab him and we'll go. Get Iry to help you," she added as an afterthought. "I don't think Jep's going to want to leave."  
  
It took all of their strength to even try to drag Jepar away, until Lisa had the sense to tell him that if they died now, no one was going to be able to help Chatoya. Lisa didn't mention the obvious downside of this - that she probably wasn't going to be alive to help - but Jepar wasn't in any state to be thinking rationally. Finally he agreed to go, taking a few seconds to break a Nightworlder's wrist, slam half a rotting tree into another and throw a third into a wall of the house.  
  
****  
  
A thud.  
  
He looked away.  
  
And Chatoya grabbed the knife, felt nauseating pain arc through her hand and twisted it from his grasp. Then she was kicking, hurling him backwards for one moment while she snatched for the blade that shone blue on the floor. Blood dripped from between her fingers as she spun round and pointed it at him.  
  
He was smiling, head tilted on one side as if he was listening to voices that she couldn't hear.   
  
"You're even more stupid than I first thought."  
  
She forced her hand to stop shaking, pushed back the pain. "I aim to please. And to hit the heart."  
  
"Quite the comedienne, I see." He didn't move, except to bare fangs. "Do you really think you're going to get out of this alive?" That soft, spellbinding note was back in his voice. "You're not a killer."  
  
"There's a difference between murder and killing to survive," she said, feeling every instinct hum, ready to react if he so much as blinked. "I'll kill if I have to."  
  
He walked up to her then, so the blade was pointing at his throat. "Go ahead."  
  
Heartbeats passed while she stared, shocked. His eyes had darkened until they were black and iridescent, filled not with colour, but the absence of it. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the depths of night, where the music was dark and dreadful and alive; the place where hope ended and the screams began.   
  
And she couldn't do it.   
  
She couldn't kill this awful, inhuman monster. Not for her dead twin, not for her lost family, not for herself who was surely lost beyond all. She couldn't and wouldn't.  
  
He reached up a hand, slowly, not through caution or prudence, but simply because he wanted to see her reaction, and wrapped it around the knife.   
  
"Here's the difference between us, witch girl," he murmured and taking the knife from her nerveless grip, let it drop. "You can't kill. But I can."  
  
And then the hands closed around her throat.  
  
That was what broke her curious paralysis and Chatoya began to fight, kicking, writhing, clawing. Her hands pulled at his, wrapped around her throat and slowly crushing, increasing the pressure so she hadn't the air to even cry out. It was excruciatingly slow, painful.   
  
She tried to hit him in the face, throwing the remnants of her magick at him. But the hex twisted out of her grip and suddenly the lightning was in her head, in her thoughts, rebounding and reflecting...like a mirror.  
  
He snarled, suddenly no longer human, but shook her hard until she thought her neck might snap. Then the pressure was gone, and she was lying in a broken bundle on the floor, knowing she had to move, she had to, but unable to gain any control over her body. She could only stare as his lips drew back and he snarled, fury electric in his eyes as those gleaming teeth drew closer to her throat...and bit.  
  
Something leapt, searing a path of flames and force between them, linking them. She knew what it was at once, though her mind shrieked in denial as her breath was snatched away and she felt the fires leap in her vision, beautiful, hungry, flaring silver and gold. Filling every part of her with heat and hurt.  
  
She became aware that someone was screaming.  
  
And it wasn't her.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading! Comments would be loved, loved, loved!  



	9. Chapter Nine

My humble and heartfelt thanks, to you utterly delectable dishes who reviewed last time round :-) Thank you; Kay (don't tell anyone, but I'm a hopeless romantic myself. Blue just makes things really difficult.), Linnet Jo (Thank you! It was written in one of my saner periods. When I knew what spare time was...oh, those were the days!), Magelet (I have to stop at some point! Or I'll go mad! No...wait...I'll go sane!) and the lovely Carina (An absolute angel called Jen makes the site :-) It's all down to her! Thanks!)  
  
Comments would be adored, pored over, adulated, venerated, revered and cheered J Please tell me what you think!  
  
Hope you enjoy,  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Nine  
  
Chatoya felt the world around her snap sideways, as if something pulled her away from reality and into...  
  
Somewhere else.  
  
Somewhere cold and bitter, where force threw her onto a surface that felt like frozen glass, almost silky on her skin, but frozen. She fought to push herself up, felt her hair streaming across her face in icy, wet tresses.  
  
And all around her, only the hell of that screaming, wailing voice.  
  
She didn't know if her own voice added to the cacophony of sound, if her eyes saw anything other than the wrenching darkness that surrounded her. It was as if every sense she owned had been stolen; so numbed by the cold that she could feel nothing. The ice bit as she staggered to her feet only to fall down against the winds. Again and again she struggled up, only to be thrown down. Minutes, what seemed like hours passed.  
  
What's happening? she thought numbly. I was dying wasn't I? And I threw that spell at him and tried to hurt him and suddenly...I'm here.  
  
Wherever here is.   
  
The cold chilled her until she thought she wouldn't be able to move at all. Still her thoughts spun, faster and faster as the blazing winds lanced across her skin and she was huddled in a small heap, just trying to keep out of the blast as much as she could, breathing in the scent of rain.  
  
You can't just move from one place to another. It's not possible, I know that! And that means this is all an illusion. A very clever, very good illusion, but still an illusion.  
  
I can deal with illusions. I'm a witch. It's only real because you think it is, so just imagine somewhere else.  
  
Somewhere warm for a start. She remembered childhood holidays in Europe, in the swelter of Italy and the gloriously hot sun of southern France. The way it had warmed her skin, the scream of gulls. The heaviness in the air and the sand that burnt underfoot, the air simmering hazily. She fell into those memories.  
  
It was with horror that she realised they evoked no emotions. Nothing. Just that curious void inside her that if she concentrated on, it was as if she was falling into a dizzying spiral that only led into darkness, into...  
  
Her eyes flew open.  
  
Slowly the scene focused. A crystalline sky, the deeply cold colour of winter. And around her...a beach. But there was no semblance of heat. The sand on this beach was dozens of tiny crystals, not golden, but flawless icy-pale blue. The sea was black, immeasurable enough to hold one of the sea monsters of legend.  
  
"What have you done?" a voice said and it rang with fury. "What the hell have you done?"  
  
****  
  
"Nothing!" Jepar yelled and shook off Cougar angrily. "That's what we're doing, nothing at all!"  
  
"For the sake of all gods past and present, sit *down*!" Sonj was shouting. "I mean it, Jepar Jubatus. If you don't stop being so bloody *suicidal*, I'll kill you!"  
  
Cougar Redfern rolled his gold eyes. "Good threat, Sonj. That's going to put the fear of God into him."  
  
"And you can shut up too, Redfern," she said, turning her anger on him. "And put that goddamn cigarette out...or you'll end up trying to extract it from the end that does the thinking for you."  
  
Cougar looked mildly interested, sitting down in a sofa with a sigh. "You're going to choke me?"  
  
The look she gave him was pure evil. "No." He grinned infectiously and with mock meekness, put it out.  
  
"Enough," Lisa put in. It had been some three hours since they left Chatoya and outside, the sun was sinking into the horizon, dazzlingly orange. Just a minute or two of light let, she guessed. Night came early at the start of spring, despite the intense heat. "You're not helping anyone."  
  
"Sitting here isn't," Jepar snapped restlessly and got up from the sofa. Automatically, Lisa pulled him back again. She was stronger than the shapeshifter, and kept an iron grip on his arm until he gave up.   
  
"Listen to me," she ordered. Faces turned to her. "It's been *three hours*, Jepar. I know you don't want to hear this, but she's probably dead." He flinched and the defiance seemed to snap, to break in his eyes then.  
  
"So," Cougar said. "Not wanting to be callous, how do we kill my brother and his band of merry men?"  
  
"Oh, you're all heart." Sonj's cynical glare was returned by the lamia as Lisa wondered how on earth she was supposed to stop her various and impulsive friends from doing something even more unutterably stupid than usual. "What is it with you Redferns? You're about as friendly as a pack of wolves."  
  
"I resent that," Iry Lupine muttered from where he was slumped, staring at the ceiling. He seemed bored, but Lisa suspected there was worry under there somewhere. It just needed an oil-drill to extract it.  
  
"Don't any of you give a damn about Chatoya?" Jepar demanded, lifting his head so they could see the emerald eyes filled with fire. "She might still be-"  
  
"She's not, Jep!" Lisa was surprised to hear Sonj's voice waver. "Look, I liked her, okay. She barely knew us and she still tried to protect us. I wish we had more time to know her...but she's gone. She's dead."  
  
"Like hell she is," a new voice said, and all five of them stared at the boy who walked into the room as the last beams of sunlight fled the sky.  
  
His eyes glowed like the corona of the moon; entirely blue, bar a dot of silver where his pupil might once have been. But that wasn't the strangest thing.  
  
His feet weren't touching the floor.  
  
****  
  
Chatoya whirled, the strange ice crystals crunching and squealing under her feet.  
  
The boy was standing there, with his angry endless eyes and icy pale skin fitting perfectly into the setting. His blue hair was almost invisible against the bright shade of the sky; the world seemed to meld about him, as if he was somehow part of this strange, futuristic background.   
  
"How have you done it?" he hissed. As he stepped forward, the crystal sand shifted under his feet to form solid ground; that strange glassy sheet she had fallen to before. "What spell, witch, what hex?"  
  
He looked dangerous here; back in that warm living room, he had been almost unreal, a threat that couldn't be because death didn't happen to real people. Death was for movies and the deserving. Not the victims.  
  
Now his teeth shone like the crystals she stood on, his eyes flared the colour of the sun shining through the ocean's depths and he was impossibly, stunningly inhuman.   
  
"I haven't done anything," she said calmly. "This isn't me."  
  
~ Don't lie! ~   
  
The telepathic shout ricocheted through her head agonisingly. She screamed, her hands flying to her ears.  
  
"It isn't me!" she shouted back. "What are you, terminally stupid?"  
  
"*What* did you call me?" His skin was drawn tight across his face.  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry, deaf too?" She was filled with crazy rage that made her ignore what she could see building in his eyes; layer upon layer of tension as she hurled insults at him. "Did I wound the feelings of the cold-hearted barbaric killer? Please, tell me if I'm upsetting you, I wouldn't want to cause you any harm!"  
  
He strode forward and hit her hard with breathtaking composure.  
  
The blow caught the side of her face and she fell backward, head snapping back as she hit the ground.   
  
But she barely noticed the impact for the effect the contact had had.  
  
In that split second, she could read every thought in his head, clear as if he had shouted them, and knew that he could read her every thought too. She was surrounded by the reek of death, the fierce joy of killing and the sheer horror that rang through him because...what was happening...there was a word for it.  
  
"Soulmates?" she said. Disbelief made her hands tremble as she pushed herself back up. Her face stung. But she understood the horrible truth that made her stomach twist and sink. That storm...that had been the defences of his mind. That screaming, glacial hell.   
  
He stared back, face utterly unreadable.  
  
Denial pure and strong. "No," she said. "Never. This is some sick, sick joke! I'd rather be suspended over a pool of acid, I'd sooner *die*." But it was awful and it was true. "Oh Goddess. Soulmates."  
  
"We are *not* soulmates!" he hissed venomously. "Nothing as pathetic as you would ever have any sort of connection with me."  
  
"Connect this," she snapped and aimed an expert foot at his shin and heard the thunk with satisfaction. But she froze as his thoughts flooded into her head again, so dreadful and dark that she gasped and leapt away.  
  
He had frozen too, then slowly relaxed as if forcing himself to. "Well, well," he said softly. "It would seem you're right. How inconvenient."  
  
"No," Chatoya murmured, but the appalled numb feeling was working its way from her stomach to her head. "No, not you. This isn't how it's meant to be."  
  
Amusement filled his face then as he saw the way she reacted. "What's wrong?" he purred. "Don't you like the truth? I thought people like you were all for honesty."  
  
"That's not honesty," she said, trembling violently. In her mind's eye, she could see the face of someone, a girl, screaming and spinning round crazily as he hunted her down and drove her insane. Her long, manicured hands clamped to her cheeks in a cage of flesh. "That's a psychologist's nightmare."  
  
"Nightmare," he mused. Those devastatingly sane, merciless tones caught her and for a second, the winds screamed around her ears again. "Yes, that sounds about right." Hooded cobalt eyes snapped up to hers. "But you can't wake up from this one, witch girl. And I'll make sure you don't."  
  
As he smiled slowly, she understood his intention.   
  
"I'm your soulmate," she said, edging away. "And you'd still kill me?"  
  
That grin grew wider. "You got a problem with that?" Closer. She turned to run, but the crystal beach slid from beneath her feet and she fell, sand running over her hands in tiny, cold bites. Her hair fell over her face in rattails, briefly shielding her from the scene.  
  
I've got to do something, she thought. He's serious. And worst of all, he's completely sane. There was no reasoning. No magick. No one but herself and this infuriating, unwanted link.  
  
Oh. No...that was stupid. It would *never*...surely he would...?  
  
"Get up."  
  
She obeyed. He was surveying her intently, eyes narrowing and fingers tapping on his folded arms. Then he smiled and held out a hand. His pupils swelled as shadows slid into his eyes.   
  
"No weapons. Could be a problem." One eyebrow raised. "I guess I'll have to strangle you again."  
  
"Please, don't go overboard with the romantic gestures," she said and nearly kicked herself. This was not the time to be playing the fearless heroine. She wasn't fearless, for a start; her fear had just been locked under powerful charms. She couldn't feel it; but the fear sped her heart and crushed the air from her lungs.  
  
I need it back, she thought. I really need that knee-trembling, stomach flipping mindless panic. She took a breath and, much to her surprise, found tears caught on it.   
  
The boy had only disgust on his face. "I don't know why you're crying. You've had plenty of time to get used to the idea," he said and then strode towards her, hands reaching for her neck.  
  
Now, she thought.  
  
She caught his hands, holding off the darkness of his mind with thoughts of sweet summer days, of laughter, of friends long forgotten. Chatoya Irkil took a deep breath and stepped within his arms, ignoring the flare of brief shock in those eyes the colour of timeless skies. And before he could react, she kissed him.  
  
****  
  
"Oh, great," Cougar said with heavy sarcasm. "Not more of this 'I come to you from beyond the veil' crap. Who are you, Casper, and what do you want?"  
  
"Chatoya's alive?" Jepar said urgently, staring at the boy with bright, leaping eyes. Every muscle he possessed was tensed, the striking face taut with determination. "Where?"  
  
The boy stared at him. "The house you were in...if you go quickly..." He didn't finish; Jepar was already out of the door and moving with a predatory speed, his long legs carrying him out into the night. Lisa hoped no one tried to stop him, for their sake.   
  
"Hang on..." Lisa peered at the boy with the soft, unruly black hair and her eyes widened. "Jon? What are you doing? Is this another of your cute mind-tricks?"  
  
"That's my cousin you're thinking of," the boy said in a quiet lilting voice. And looking at him, Lisa could see the similarity to Chatoya, the same serene eyes and gently curving mouth. "I'm Josh. Josh Irkil."  
  
"As in the one who got hacked into chutney by my brother?" Cougar grinned. "Guess he needs practice."  
  
"I hate to point this out, Cougar hon," Lisa told him gently, trying not to laugh at this frightening and yet somehow ridiculous situation. "But most of the living can't float." The lamia scowled and then shrugged.  
  
"Oh, sorry." The boy - Josh, Lisa reminded herself with a twinge of unease, lowered himself to the ground. "You must be Lisa then. I'm dead," he added off-handedly.  
  
"Okay..." Sonj said uneasily. Her face was ashen as she sat beside Cougar. For once, neither snapped or bantered as she curled into the corner of the chair. "I don't know what to say to that."  
  
Josh blinked and then a shy smile appeared. "You must be Sonj. The mad one."  
  
Lisa chuckled. "She's a little...lacking in aspects of behaviour. That's all." She ignored Sonj's glare. It was true; the half-breed had no control over her temper and sometimes Lisa thought she was even a little crazy.  
  
"How do you know my name?" the redhead said.  
  
The boy sighed and despite the strange eyes that had no whites, only deep azure, he was perfectly human. "It's a long story."  
  
"We're sittin' comfortably," Iry Lupine said sharply, leaning forward. The grey flecks in his eyes seemed to glow silver. "You can begin."  
  
"Well...it all started before I died." The boy's face was distant as he tried to remember. "It's hazy now. When you die, everything seems to fade. But I was a spy. For Daybreak. I got into it by accident. Rescued one of their witches from a vampire. She offered me a job - she said I'd be good at it." His head dropped for a moment. "And I was. Very good."  
  
"You found out about the dragons, didn't you?" Cougar said, expression intense. "The ones that got Jepar all riled up."  
  
Josh looked at him. "Is Jepar the one who kissed my sister?" he said. Lisa had the feeling he was diverting attention from himself.  
  
"What?" everyone said in shocked chorus, except Cougar who grinned and said, "I knew it!"   
  
Then the vampire paused, fidgeting. The gold eyes were liquid with confusion. "How do you know that? I didn't say and Jep certainly didn't."  
  
"I'll get to it." Josh looked slightly embarrassed. "But *anyway*, yeah, I found out about the dragons. But that wasn't why they killed me."  
  
"What?" Sonj's single grey eye flickered. "But...what could be worse than that?"  
  
Those unearthly eyes fixed on her and Sonj couldn't hold his stare. The suffering there was too terrible, too unspeakable. "Are you afraid of me?"  
  
"I..." The redhead shivered suddenly. "Yes," she said in a low voice. "Yes, I am."  
  
"Good. You should be." He looked at them all. "You're going to want to kill me," he said. And a bitter smile touched his face. "Obviously there are a few problems with that. Just...remember I'm dead, okay?"  
  
"Get on with it," Cougar drawled. "You're worse than Sonj trying to admit to emotions."  
  
The boy's jaw tensed and he took a deep breath. In that moment, he looked uncertain. "I didn't die because I found out about the dragons...I died because..." Around him, an aura flared, a black, oily clinging aura that made Lisa want to recoil in horror.  
  
"I woke a dragon."  
  
****  
  
Chatoya didn't know what she had expected.  
  
Kissing Jepar had been shivery and intense, the kind of kiss that made tingles run from her mouth through to her fingers and toes. Sweet, sensual and summery, a memory she would always look back on and smile.   
  
Kissing this boy was like having her blood set on fire.   
  
It burned, and it hurt, but there was a kind of power in it, something addictive about the pain. She was enveloped in the sense of his mind and it was like being hit by a geyser. Flaring with heat and unstoppable force. She could feel his intense shock, wrapped around ice so deep she could see no way for anyone drowning beneath to surface. Shaking every belief he held.   
  
She had intended it to be a distraction, a diversion. And instead, she was drowning.   
  
She knew everything he did with a horrible, futile feeling. This changed nothing. He would still kill her because of the savage joy that killing bought, because it was not what he was, but *who* he was. He killed because he loved it, not because he was forced to or needed to, but because he chose to. Everything he was repulsed her, made her want to push him away and try to wash off the taint. But if she did, she would die.  
  
The discovery was horrible; like feeling someone take everything she believed and rip it into shreds.   
  
Shock had held him still but she sensed it wouldn't much longer. No! she thought. I won't give in.   
  
It took every piece of willpower she possessed to wrench away and step back, so afraid that every breath shook her. Their eyes met and Chatoya saw the disbelief retreating and the ancient, fathomless cold return.   
  
"I'm not as stupid as you think," she said. And then she punched him.  
  
Images, feelings, thoughts swamped her for a second. She felt her mind buckle under the onslaught and knew she was about to pass out and...  
  
Something snapped hard like a door slamming and she was back in the living room, on the floor. Dazed, she looked around and saw the boy, unconscious with a bruise starting to flare on his jaw. He wouldn't be out long, she realised and stumbled up, feeling ridiculously weak.   
  
Lack of air, of course. From when he had tried to strangle her...before. But she didn't have time to worry about that now. Lack of blood, too.   
  
She staggered outside and breathed in the fresh spring air. That helped. Out here, everything seemed normal. Her life hadn't just been tipped upside down. Her brother's killer wasn't her soulmate. It was just a spring evening and she was going to walk home. She froze as a wolf howl echoed through the evening hush.   
  
Run home. Around the strange calm that surrounded her, she felt a kind of despair. *Try* to run home.  
  
The wolf howled again, closer, filled with baneful hunger. And she saw green eyes flare in the darkness as a lean, silvery body prowled forwards, showing gleaming teeth.  
  
It snarled.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading! I'd love, love, love to hear what you think!  



	10. Chapter Ten

Well, this has taken- to say the least - while to update, and I'm really sorry if anyone out there in the electric beyond is still reading :-) My apologies - but thank you to those darlings of you who did comment all that time ago! Thanks:  
  
Magelet: Trust me, the concept of me being sane is a scary one :-) But I promise it won't take so long next time round! Thank you :-)  
  
Mal: Yup, it's up on the site, but I figured it might be a good idea to put it up here as it's how Toya met Blue. It was one of my favourites to write, because I'd never really known how Jepar/Cougar/Toya were when they were younger. Thanks!  
  
Dianna: Shimmer was only meant to be three parts long, would you believe :;grins:: Oh, how little I knew! Don't worry, whether Blue lives or not is really not vital to the story - that not what Shimmer's about. Though he did start his scene-stealing act here :-) Thanks!  
  
Comments - always - are much adored, pored over, treasured and cherished - I love knowing what you thinks, it makes the winter days a lot warmer! If you'd like to get hold of me off FFN, I'm at kiananw@hotmail.com  
  
Hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Ten  
  
The wolf slunk nearer and its lips skinned back as saliva fell from its mouth.   
  
Oh Goddess, Chatoya thought with hopeless reflex. I don't have anything left to fight with. How am I going to get rid of *that*?  
  
She stared into its eldritch eyes, terrified beyond thought. Despair assailed her; she was trapped. Behind her was the house, and *he* would be waiting in there, with his endless cobalt eyes and bright, cruel smile.   
  
It threw back its head to howl...and a rock hit it on the head. It slumped sideways.  
  
She stared and blinked. That couldn't have happened! Rocks didn't just...  
  
"Come on!" She recognised the British accent with shock. Jepar slithered out of the shadows, a feline smile on his face. "As soon as she wakes up, she'll call the Pack and they'll be after us. They don't think throwing stones is very sporting." He winked. "But I didn't have time to fight."  
  
"I..." was all she could get out, her voice husky. Her head was feeling horribly light and the world seemed so far away.   
  
"Toya?" Anxiety now. He was close, she could sense that as her vision began to grey. Her body, which had been operating on automatic, was giving up on her. No! she thought desperately. I have to warn him.   
  
"He's in there," she forced out through the rustling in her ears. "I hurt him, but he's in there."  
  
"I'll..." She heard him start to move away.  
  
"No! He'll kill you..." She swayed suddenly, her vision disappearing in a rush of black. "Jepar..." She felt his arms close around her just before her legs folded and she was thrown into a world of darkness.  
  
Horrified, Jepar hastily checked her pulse. Strong, but he could see a line of bruises beginning to form around her throat, but more noticeable than that, two marks ringed by dark blood. He was gripped by a fury he hadn't felt since...since then. Deliberately he calmed himself. This was Toya. She would be fine, he just had to get her out of here, away from the Pack and away from Cougar's bastard brother.   
  
He didn't know how she had got away or why Blue Malefici was still in there. But Jepar would make sure that vampire never even got *near* her again. Never. She was so pale...yet he could hear the beat of her heart with his preternatural senses, strong and regular.  
  
There was, he decided as he picked her up (and noticed how little she weighed with concern), far more to Chatoya Irkil than met the eye.   
  
****  
  
"You...woke a dragon," Cougar Redfern repeated in thoughtful tones. "From the way you say that, I get the feeling it didn't roll over and mumble it'd be up in few minutes."  
  
Josh Irkil squirmed. Despite the fact a black aura glowed around him like a cloak, despite the fact his eyes were one colour only; a fluorescent blue like that found in a gas flame, despite the way he was hovering at least three feet off the floor, he looked embarrassed.  
  
"Not exactly, no." He winced. "It sort of wanted to eat every major organ I owned, starting with my brain."  
  
"Guess it lucked out there then," Sonj Jameson said with false brightness before her entire countenance changed. "What are you, *insane*? What the *hell* were you thinking? Dragons are murderers, they're crazy, gods be blest, they didn't spend ten thousand years creating volcanoes everywhere because they thought the place needed a bit of colour!"   
  
"I always thought it was because they didn't have any central heating," Cougar drawled and recoiled from the black glares that earned him from Josh and Sonj. "Just trying to lighten the mood."  
  
"There's some kerosene in the garage," Sonj snapped. "Why don't you go have an accident with it and some matches? That'll lighten *my* mood."   
  
Cougar looked aggrieved. Before he could start another argument, Lisa leaned over to touch his wrist.   
  
"She's scared," she told him, watching as the anger in the lamia's gaze dimmed, leaving his eyes clear hazel. "This is the only way she knows to show it."  
  
He shrugged. "Yeah. I know. She just...really knows how to make me mad."  
  
She felt her mouth lift. "Of course she does. Winding you up's practically routine now." He smiled wryly, acknowledging his lack of control over his temper. She turned her attention back to Josh and Sonj. "Josh?" she called softly.  
  
He looked at her, face unreadable, glowing with a subtle light. Lisa felt an unexpected rush of pity for him. He's just a kid, she thought. They're all just kids really. And they've been thrown into something they can't hope to understand without any sort of help.   
  
"Why?" she asked. "Why did you wake one? You must have known, surely..."  
  
He looked at her and something in his face was heartbroken. "I was scared," he said in a voice that had gone flat and dead suddenly. "Spying for Daybreak was getting more and more dangerous. And they kept sending me out to fetch old spells for them. Well, sometimes I'd find more spells than the one they sent me for and I...read them. And all the time, I was getting so scared. Toya kept asking questions and I hated lying to her, but I had to, I had to, I had to..."  
  
"Easy, kid," Iry Lupine's rough voice growled from across the room. "What's done is done an' gettin' all panicked over it ain't goin' to change what you've done."  
  
Lisa shot the werewolf a grateful look. He had been listening quietly, just watching Josh's face. She respected Iry; although he was a lone wolf and fierce as they came, he was sharp as a sword and had that authority that instantly calmed shot nerves and buoyed fraying confidence.  
  
Josh raked his hands through his hair. "You're right...but lying to her was so hard. And what was worse, she *knew* I was lying to her. I didn't want to put her in danger. And then, one day I found it."  
  
"The key that unlocked the door to time and space?" Cougar said glibly.   
  
Josh stared at him coldly. "How have you not been found dead in an alley?"  
  
That shut the vampire up. There was something in those eyes that was very dangerous. A look that didn't belong to a witch, but to the hunting races. The vampires, the shapeshifters. The dragons. "The dragons," she said aloud, beginning to gain an understanding. "What did you find, Josh?" She kept her voice gentle, as if she was trying not to scare a wild animal that might panic and flee at any moment.  
  
Hesitation, then he exhaled. "I found a spell. And in a way...I guess it *did* unlock the door to time and space. It was very old - it must have been written just after the dragons were put under the sleep enchantment. But I studied the shapeshifter languages - I had to, to know which spells Daybreak wanted - and I translated it eventually."  
  
"I'll bet it didn't tell him to heat the oven to three-sixty and start melting the butter," Cougar murmured, so softly Lisa only just caught it.   
  
Josh was almost transparent in his distress; she could see the fireplace through him.   
  
"It was a spell that enabled whoever cast it to have the powers of a dragon." Lisa felt cold suddenly, as if mist had settled on her skin and saw her shock reflected around the room. "The spell allowed you to link with a dragon's mind and take all the energy it possessed. It didn't say that the dragon would fight it."  
  
He swallowed hard, and carried on. "It was easy the first time. I only needed a little power to knock the assassins out. But next time, there were more of them. I needed more power and the dragon fought me again. It was still asleep, but each time, it was getting closer to waking. And so Daybreak would send me on assignments that were getting more dangerous and each time, I had to fight harder to control the power."  
  
"And then?" Sonj whispered, her knees drawn up to her chest like a kid, her silver eye wide and scared.   
  
Josh shrugged. "Toya followed me. I didn't realise she had until I was almost back. We were only a couple of streets from home, that was the stupid thing. Then she confronted me...I knew they were following us, they always did. But they chose then to attack, and I wasn't ready...I didn't have time to cast the spell."  
  
Lisa looked at him. "When Chatoya was...upset, yesterday, she remembered what had happened," she said, careful to keep her voice even. She wanted to scream at him, tell him how unbelievably stupid he had been, but that wasn't fair. He was just a kid who had been scared and who hadn't known what the price of using black magick would be. "We're all strong telepaths, except maybe Sonj, but even she could see what Chatoya was thinking. You cast some sort of spell in the end and that saved her."  
  
He smiled strangely. "I knew I was dead. But I couldn't let Toya die. We're *twins*. You'll never understand what that means."  
  
Lisa dropped her eyes. You will never know, she thought. None of you will.  
  
"And so...I did cast the spell in the end. And I got the power - I used it to kill most of them and hurt the others. Some of them still got away though. But...I couldn't hold off the dragon. I couldn't keep it asleep. And now...there's a dragon out there somewhere, and it's awake and it's going to come here."  
  
"Do you think if we bake it some cookies it won't rip us into tiny shreds and eat us?" Cougar said brightly.   
  
Lisa threw a mental punch that made the lamia swear under his breath. "This isn't the time," she hissed.   
  
Josh's face was oddly distant, his hands clenching and unclenching like a cat unsheathing its claws. "No. It wants revenge on me. It can't kill me now, but it can kill Chatoya. It felt her through our twin-link and it can find her now. And it will want all of you too."  
  
"Maybe this is a stupid question, but why?" Iry Lupine queried, tapping his fingers on the arms of the chair. "I ain't done nothin' to annoy it. I'll leave that up to Redfern an' his smart-ass remarks."  
  
Josh smiled; the first genuine smile Lisa had seen from him yet. "Because she likes you," he answered. "She feels affection for you...and dragons can't stand that. It...Anguis, I think it calls itself, detests any sort of emotion."  
  
"You'll be okay then, Sonj," Cougar said, pretending to cower at the icy glare he earned. "Spare me!"  
  
"So," Lisa said. "We have a dragon on the rampage. Chatoya missing, Jepar gone to-"  
  
The door slammed and they all looked up expectantly. An exhausted Jepar came in, covered in bites and scratches, carrying Chatoya. Lisa felt horror strike her. The girl was so pale her skin seemed translucent; her veins glowed blue through it. Almost as if she were made of glass.   
  
"I don't know how she got away," Jepar said disbelievingly as he gave the unconscious girl to Sonj and Cougar. Already stormcloud witch fire smouldered between the redhead's palms. "He bit her."  
  
"Well, I didn't think he kissed her," Sonj snapped. "That doesn't suck the life and blood right out of you."  
  
"Probably does with my little brother, actually," Cougar murmured.   
  
Jepar's green eyes glowed feverishly as he hovered, watching Sonj's ministrations with that intense gaze and Lisa could see he was stretched almost to breaking point. "Is she going to be okay?" He was swaying. Lisa sat him down before he fell over but the emerald eyes still burned up at her. "Lise? Is she-"  
  
"I don't know, Jep," she said gently. Cougar was carrying the witch upstairs while Sonj ran to get herbs and stones. Josh, she noticed, had vanished. Probably gone to watch over his twin. "Sonj will do what she can, but if it gets beyond her, we'll call the Elders. What happened to you?"  
  
"The Pack chased me," he murmured. "What if Cougar gives her blood?" Urgency in his voice.   
  
Iry Lupine snorted. "Hah! You ever tried gettin' a Redfern to open their veins?"  
  
"No," Jepar said in that slightly detached voice. "Why, have you?"  
  
Iry grinned wolfishly. "Yup. All the Redferns are mean-minded sons-of-bitches an' that's comin' from someone who's qualified to judge. Besides, kid, that ain't a solution. She's lost so much blood that Redfern would have to change her to help."  
  
She saw the look on Jepar's face. "When she's stronger, we can," Lisa said thoughtfully. "If all of us give a little blood, we shouldn't change her. But let her get some strength back first." She had her doubts that Chatoya would recover...but she didn't say so. That would have been cruel.  
  
"So what do we do?" Jepar said, his accent chiming behind every word, eyes half-shut from sheer fatigue already. After all, both he and Chatoya had spent all day running and fighting.   
  
Iry Lupine got up and stretched lazily, looking more wolfish by the second. "I'm goin' to hunt," he declared bluntly. "You ain't my concern. I've done my charity bit for the day. Then I'm goin' home an' if that blue-haired horror is there, there's goin' to be trouble." He smiled without any humour. "I haven't lived ninety-five years without learnin' a trick or two."  
  
Lisa met the brown eyes. "Thank you," she said.   
  
"Don't thank me. I ain't got nothin' better to do, that was all," came back the curt reply. He strode out the door without any more preamble and Lisa shook her head as he left. Iry was a mystery.  
  
She turned to her shapeshifter friend, noticing the way every muscle was completely relaxed, the way the spark was dying in his eyes. "And you," she told him. "Well, you get some sleep to start with."  
  
He shook his head stubbornly. "No. I won't be able to."  
  
She sighed. Cougar could knock him out when he came back down. "In that case, we wait."  
  
****  
  
Chatoya Irkil dreamed. And while she dreamed, the spell that held her emotions beneath reams of enchantment fed from her weakness. It strengthened; it spread and though none of them knew it, the girl who awoke...  
  
Would have no emotion.  
  
Her body lay in her room, the moon shining clear through the window until Sonj Jameson whisked shut the curtains and set herbs and stones down on the table by the bed. The half-breed talked to Cougar, for once neither of them arguing, both pairs of eyes flicking constantly to her unconscious form.  
  
Unconscious, but not still.  
  
Her lips moved occasionally, eyelids fluttering. The half-vampire part of Sonj could hear the blood swishing weakly in her veins; part of her loathed the familiar curling hunger that she had never given in to.  
  
"How bad is it?" Cougar asked the half-breed finished murmuring a spell. "And don't lie to me."  
  
She looked up at him. "About as bad as it gets. The main problem isn't the blood loss. That just needs time. It's all the other injuries from fighting and crawling through that sewage pit of a forest. Her immune system is so weak she's undoubtedly picked up half a dozen infections. That's what we're fighting. If we can stop a fever setting in," she shrugged. "Maybe. If we can't...I'm going to hunt down your goddamned brother and throw him off a very high building onto some very sharp spikes."  
  
"I get first shot at him," Cougar said grimly. "You don't know what he did." When the half-breed looked at him, she could see distance in his gaze and grief carved on his face. For a moment he stared back, and she must have let pity show on her face, for he turned and stalked out.  
  
Chatoya's body lay still.  
  
Her dreams flew far.  
  
****  
  
She was walking.  
  
That was all there was. Just the sense of her feet hitting ground, of her leg muscles tightening and relaxing as she stepped. Walking through an abyss, dark not merely filling her vision, but every sense she possessed.  
  
Her senses filtered in slowly, one by one. First, sound; the even heartbeat of her steps that echoed hollowly, as though she was utterly alone. Smell; the freshness of the earth after rain, followed by cool droplets of mist on her face and hands. Then the earthy taste of the air, and finally, her vision recovered like two grey curtains drawing back.  
  
She stopped and gasped.  
  
She was walking on a path of burning white fire that was clouded and distorted by the milky mist that floated ankle-deep above it. Around her, only the emptiness of the night sky, with dozens of stars flickering like gutting candles. The path appeared to be floating, curving and bending gently until it changed into...  
  
"Goddess blest, what *is* that?"   
  
At the horizon, the path began to split into dozens of others that wound up into the sky before her, all glowing with the same soft, ethereal light. Sometimes paths met in nodes of silvery tangles so she couldn't tell where one began and another ended. It was like a giant web of starlight that stretched before her, breathtakingly beautiful and yet somehow frightening.  
  
"It's your life," a soft voice said behind her and she turned around.  
  
Her brother stood on the path behind her, but there was something different. She stared and then gasped. He was solid, his eyes the deep, clear blue they had been before he died, looking normal and human and smiling at her with a kind of pain.  
  
"My...life?" Behind him, the path stretched in a glittering line. There were no branches, no diversions.  
  
He shrugged. "There are a dozen different names for it," he said matter-of-factly. "Starpaths. Dreamwebs. None of them are accurate. What you're seeing - those paths - are the future. Where they branch, you face a choice. And there are millions of them. That is what could be."  
  
She stared at the web. Intricate, infinitely dazzling, her head spun at even contemplating the thought that this was her life. Then her eyes narrowed as she noticed something. "Josh? Why are there places that are...empty? Some of the paths just stop."  
  
"Not all choices are good ones, Toya." Josh glanced over his shoulder, at the sparkling road that was straight and sharp. "That's the past," he said. "Everything's determined. There, I can be...normal. For a while, at least. It's very complex."  
  
"Why am I seeing this?" She met his eyes. Her brother had changed. He seemed older. Maybe even wiser.  
  
"I thought you needed to see it. So you'd know not to give up because..." He gestured to the web that hung before them, shimmering and rippling in ghostly winds. "There's so much for you to be. Just don't die on me, okay? I don't need my sister stealing my thunder." The joke was feeble. But it made her feel better.  
  
"Give up?" She laughed. "Why would I give up?"  
  
He looked at her and what she saw stilled her amusement. Her brother was deadly serious. "It's going to get difficult," he said quietly. "I've walked down your starpath. The dead can see the future because we have no more choices to make. But whatever path you choose, Toya, it's going to hurt. And I want you just...to remember this and remember how beautiful it was. And never give up. No matter what. However much it hurts, you can make it because you're strong. You don't have to kill to be strong."  
  
"Josh," she said, feeling an unfamiliar tightness in her throat. "What's going to happen?"  
  
Those eyes, candid but no longer innocent. "I don't know. I can't know...because it's uncertain. It's not just you it depends on, but the people around you. But it'll be bad."  
  
She looked at him. "But it'll get better?"  
  
He ducked his head, mulling the question. Then he sighed. "Yeah. One way or another, it'll get better."  
  
"Then I can handle it," she told him firmly. Whatever it was, she was strong enough to cope with it.   
  
He smiled and then hugged her, surprising her. Josh had never been one for affectionate gestures. "Then it'll be okay," he told her. "You're running a fever. The mad one - Sonj - can heal you, but you have to let her. Don't resist, even if it hurts. Can you do that?"  
  
"I'm your sister," she said gently. "If you can live on after death, what chance has a little fever got?"  
  
He nodded. And she gasped as the starpath dropped away and she fell into the searing smoke and hungry flames of fever.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading :-) I'd love to know what you think! 


	11. Chapter Eleven

My thanks to the wonders of you who commented last time round :-) I'm working on getting this up (hopefully it'll be about two chapters a week from now.) Thanks to:  
  
Meg: Short and sweet - thanks!  
  
Kitty Blaek: Thanks :-) I have - and am - writing more!  
  
Blaze Baelfire: ::beams:: Thanks for the review on Chimera too - I wrote this one before it, and Chiemra is all Blue's fault!  
  
Comments would be muchly loved. I hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Eleven  
  
Sonj Jameson walked downstairs and slammed the door viciously.  
  
The other two looked up from where they were sat. It was the small hours of the morning and Jepar was upstairs, asleep after Cougar had knocked him out with the mental equivalent of a sledgehammer blow. As Cougar put it; "At least we didn't let him have any coffee."  
  
Now Lisa grimaced. "That bad?"  
  
"Fever's set in," Sonj said flatly. "I'm doing what I can - and at least she's not resisting the spells. Her brother keeps floating around offering advice - if he wasn't already dead, I'd throttle him." She sat down and heaved a sigh. "And we have school in...oh, five hours. We can't leave her!"  
  
Lisa smiled ruefully. "I've thought of that. I rang the Elders and told them we got jumped by some Nightworld assassins." She gave them a tiny smile. "I told them they were after Iry."  
  
Cougar and Sonj gave her incredulous looks. "He'll kill us!" Sonj protested.  
  
Lisa smiled. "I figured I'd blame Cougar." The vampire gave her a darkly smouldering look. "But no school tomorrow. While we 'heal'."  
  
Sonj nodded. "Works for me." She sighed. "Back to the grind. Lise, can you come and politely tell Josh to bug off? I don't want to lose my temper at him...he's kind of creepy."  
  
The made vampire nodded, the beads in her hair clicking together. "Sure."  
  
That night passed slowly. Achingly so.   
  
****  
  
Her dreams were fragmented. Sometimes she could hear voices, some of them melodious and beautiful, others ugly, cracked terrors that drove her into flames and a world where ice had vanquished everything.  
  
Sometimes she thought she woke. Always to find someone there, sitting quietly. She would try to talk to them, but the weakness would overcome her and she would be trapped, silent, unable to move. And oddly enough, everything felt distant. Her pain; her fear; her anger. All of them seemed harder to reach with time.  
  
"...are you sure there's nothing else you can do?" The coffee-smooth tones of Lisa Ochai, whispery and concerned. "I don't like the look of this fever. It's like nothing I've ever seen before..."  
  
"You think I'm not trying?" Strident voice, the sharp smell of eucalyptus and beneath that, the sweetness of roses. Sonj was trying to keep her voice down and failing miserably. "Gods, I wish I *could* help."  
  
"She's been like this for a day now, despite spells which should cure a cancer patient, never mind this! How much blood did Cougar's wretched brother take?"  
  
"Too much!" Sonj said despairingly. "I'll never know how she got away. It must have been some spell, I'll say that for her." Some spell, Chatoya thought. Oh yes, it was some spell all right.  
  
A new voice, one that had a strangely ethereal quality to it. "She's always been good with magick."   
  
Sonj's impatient tones; "Oh *look*, Ghost Boy's back. Rattle anyone's chains today?"  
  
Josh? She thought. Josh? Is that you? Are you here? Was it just a mistake...have you come back? She struggled against the mists she felt close over her. Josh? Answer me, please!  
  
"I think she's..." he began and as the darkness took her again, she heard his voice from a great distance, suffused with disappointment. "No. It must have been my imagination."  
  
****  
  
Another day passed, a day of worrying, of hoping while Chatoya's fever raged high.  
  
Jepar woke up and nearly hit Cougar across the room. "I don't like people messing with my head!" he was shouting when a shattered Sonj stumbled in, about to ask the pair of them to keep it down while she got what little sleep she could before she tried to heal Chatoya again.   
  
"Oh, get *over* it!" Cougar shouted back. "Whatever your Freudian complex is, go and make peace with the universe and stop taking your problems out on me! I have had enough of being your goddamn punching bag whenever you need target practice."  
  
"Guys?" Sonj's soft, fatigued voice stopped them both, gold and green eyes blazing like fireworks. She was clinging to the doorframe, looking very young with her sleepy eyes and sweet, almost angelic smile.  
  
"Yeah?" they both said, instantly concerned. "You need anything?" Jepar added.  
  
She nodded. "Shut the *hell* up and let me get some shuteye."  
  
****  
  
That evening, Jepar and Lisa were sitting talking. Sonj was curled on a couch, napping, waiting for her magick to strengthen. The continual healing had put shadows under her eyes and strain in her hands. Cougar was watching over Chatoya - and, Lisa suspected, sulking because Jepar had managed to dislocate his shoulder in his anger, however profusely the shapeshifter had apologised.  
  
"I have to ask, Jep," Lisa smiled over at him. Despite the fact she was several years older, she rarely thought of him as a kid. The Nightworld's children grew up fast. "Why Toya? I mean...I can't see her as your type."  
  
"My type?" Jepar said, eyebrows raising. There was an edge in his voice when he spoke again. "What do you mean?"  
  
Sonj raised her head and yawned. "She means that whether you know it or not, you're drop dead gorgeous, Jep, and you're the type who should be dating models and cheerleaders, not someone like Chatoya who isn't beautiful and doesn't have the dimensions to fit all the stunning clothes you see in the shops."  
  
"I was aiming for something a little more subtle," Lisa muttered, "but yes, that's the gist of it."  
  
She thought he might have been angry or offended on Chatoya's part. Instead, his mouth twitched as if he was trying not to laugh and he shook his head, hair burnished in the sunset light. "But she's beautiful to me," he said simply.   
  
She had nothing to say to such a stark truth. Jepar was rarely as brutally honest as Cougar Redfern, but when he was, she had an insight of someone devastatingly uncomplicated, someone who didn't deserve to be hunted and caged, however substantial the width between the bars.  
  
"While we're on this soul-searching," Sonj said groggily, her words slightly slurred. "You didn't have to hit Cougar. That was probably the first unselfish thing he did in his life, knocking you out like that, and you put his shoulder out?"  
  
He winced. "Yeah. Maybe I did overreact...but maybe next time he's smoking, you shouldn't shoot him."  
  
"Cougar *was* only trying to help," Lisa told him, brown eyes earnest. But she saw that odd wariness that came into his face whenever they talked about mental powers. "Hon, you want to explain why it gets you so riled?"  
  
The emerald eyes darted, as if he was looking for an escape. Then his mouth tightened and she saw acquiescence. "When I was younger...something happened to someone I knew. She was destroyed by it. As if someone had reached inside her, taken whatever it was that made her...her, and ripped it into scraps."  
  
"What happened to her?" Lisa asked gently. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."  
  
His eyes were distant, looking into memories of a time that she was glad she would never know. "She dreamed. That was all. She wanted something she could never have and she paid for it. She died eventually. There was nothing left in the end. She didn't even know who she was, only that someone had hurt her and she just kept living that hell over and over and over. And one day," he shrugged. "It ended for her."  
  
"I'm sorry," she said. He shook his head mutely and leaned back. There was silence for a long time after.   
  
****  
  
Chatoya woke up to a yellow glow that came from the lamp someone had left on beside the bed. There was someone sitting nearby, she realised, staring out the window with bladed eyes that gave off gold sparks and holding a cigarette that drifted grey smoke across the window. Outside, the night was endlessly clear, stars glittering like broken glass on indigo velvet.   
  
"Cougar?" she said softly.  
  
He choked on a lungful of smoke and then turned. "Oh, finally decided to wake up, have you?" he croaked, the sarcasm losing its effect. "Welcome back to the land of the living. Well...undead, anyway."  
  
"How long have I been out?" she asked sleepily. Her throat was still sore and heavily bruised.   
  
"Not long. Two days, I think."  
  
"That's *not long*?" she sat up and hissed as muscles protested. She ached all over from the fight and felt somehow indescribably *tainted*. "And why on earth are you playing anxious bedsitter?"  
  
Teeth gleamed, sharper than usual. "I just wanted to take advantage of you. You know what vampires are like. The black cloak's in the wash at the moment, but if you lean back your head a little and scream..."  
  
"All right," she moaned. "I suppose I asked for that." He grinned unrepentantly. "Seriously, two days?"  
  
"Well," he drawled, "that's what happens when you don't get much sleep, don't have any breakfast and then try to kill yourself running a marathon and fighting off the forces of evil, namely my brother. Not to mention him drinking half the blood in your body. What did you do, give him a straw and a coupon?"  
  
The memory should have been horrible. Instead, it was merely...there. She explored every detail; the pain, the horror, the fear that seemed so stupid. Why was she afraid? So someone had sunk two lumps of calcium into her neck. If she died, she died. And pain? It was just...feeling. Just something that she had once had. And now she didn't understand at all why they had seemed so important.  
  
"Well," Cougar said, leaning back with a lazy sigh. "I hope now you realise you are not omnipotent."  
  
"But I was so sure I could leap tall buildings in a single bound." So easy to spar. To pretend nothing was wrong; and Chatoya knew she had to pretend because otherwise...she would upset them. And she owed these strange people.  
  
Teeth bared in a feral grin. "That's me you're thinking of. And I get the good looks too."  
  
"Where's Jepar?" Something inside her flicked low, a dying flame. It was hard to see him as she had before, someone she had valued so highly. He was far away now. Another world; a warm world where it was easy to care.  
  
"Downstairs. Relaxing. Poor guy was exhausted after he had to lug your carcass through the woods." The vampire stared at her and with a start, she realised he must have been hunting. His face had that fine air of life to it, every feature seeming sharpened. "Did you really spend all day running through the ghost roads?"  
  
"Yes." Something he had said earlier caught her attention. "How did you know I didn't get much sleep?"  
  
"Your twin told us," the lamia said causally, but his eyes watched her reaction with black humour.  
  
"My twin...you know about him?"   
  
"Yeah, he did this cute floating-from-the-shadows thing and then told us why my brother and his fang gang are after you. Did you know he tried to rob a dragon of his powers and keep them for himself?"  
  
"*What?*" she shrieked and leapt out of bed. Sudden, terrifying emotion ripped through her head, unable to be controlled. For a second, she was teetering between void and flames of feelings and...  
  
The world descended back into alarming darkness.  
  
****  
  
Next time she woke, four anxious faces were looking down at her. A fifth floated above her, misty and almost transparent. Josh. It was darker outside than it had been before, the sky a deep unyielding black.   
  
She remembered with a jolt and sat up, pushing tangles of sooty hair out of her eyes. "What were you saying about a *dragon*?" Relief in all their faces (bar Cougar's due to the cloud of smoke obscuring him.)  
  
Sonj elbowed the other three out of the way, handing her a mug of golden liquid that smelled herbal and summery. "Later. Drink this," she ordered. "The rest of you, out...except Jepar because I don't want to get into a fight with him. And Redfern, you don't smoke round someone who's nearly been suffocated."  
  
Behind the redhead, Jepar smiled brilliantly and winked at Chatoya. She winked back, remembering that dying, slow flame of emotion she had felt for him. Had it been love? She supposed not; that sentiment was often mistaken. But affection, certainly. Which was more than she could say for her soulmate.  
  
The strange blue-haired boy, older than his years. Who killed and killed and had no compassion. She was beginning to understand why and found it harder to condemn him with each second away from the sixth sense of emotion. But she had to pretend. The truth...the truth would only hurt them. Somehow, it was important she didn't hurt them, because then she would be just like that boy, wouldn't she?  
  
"What's in this?" Chatoya said, sipping the mug. "It smells gorgeous...but it tastes *awful*."  
  
"Thanks." Sonj grinned, her silver eye glinting with mischief. "It's scented with roses, apples and a little ylang ylang. I'm not too good on hiding the flavour yet though."  
  
"Sonj is obsessed with roses," Jepar said dryly, sitting on the other side of the bed. "Just look at her!"  
  
The girl shrugged and sent waves rippling down her long red hair that she had held back with clips. He was right; her strapless top had a black rose printed on it, her necklace was a tiny silver rose in bloom, her ring, her bracelet, even the tattoo that twined around the top of her arm was interlinked roses.  
  
"They're pretty," she declared. "They smell wonderful, I'm half-vampire, even if I'm not made, and-"  
  
"And," Jepar cut in, "It's nothing at all to do with the fact that Rob Slivan gave you a rose for Valentine's last year, the remains of which is slowly decomposing in your room a year on...and that you are, in fact, a hopeless romantic under that hard-ass act."  
  
Chatoya watched, distantly amused as the half-breed went scarlet and muttered something inaudible, playing with her hair. "I left some herbs in my room," she announced abruptly and left.  
  
Jepar laughed. "She doesn't like anyone cracking the act," he told her merrily. "She thinks it'll make her vulnerable. And she's not sure she should like Rob because he's human...it's all very complicated."  
  
"Sounds about right," she said. Humans. Playing with words and gestures for what? A breath of pleasure. She looked up at him to see him looking back steadily. She could see herself reflected in his eyes; a pale girl with large, moss green eyes that glowed serenely over a long nose and thin, curving mouth.   
  
"How are you?" he asked. "Really."  
  
"I'm..." She didn't even consider honesty. That was for people who valued it. "Shaken. And scared. I was lucky, that was all. And next time, I think they'll make sure the only luck I have is bad."  
  
"There won't be a next time," Jepar said and something fierce shone in his face. "We won't let them. 'Sides, we've all got the next couple of days off until Lisa runs out of convincing excuses."  
  
She looked at him, proud, passionate and more determined than she had seen him yet. "All of us?"  
  
"Yeah." He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't think we were going to leave you here alone, did you? I know how you feel about being alone." His voice serious for once. And then he grinned wickedly. "I know a good cure for that too," he murmured and leaning forward, kissed her.  
  
There might not have been sparks or a link into his mind, but she didn't need those things from the way he kissed her, passionate and yet curiously tender too, making her head spin with alarming ease as that quiet flame leapt again, and she thought: I feel for him still. I don't know if that will ever fade. Both jumped when they heard someone cough. The shapeshifter sighed regretfully and sat back, a faint smile on his face.   
  
"If you're well enough to be giving Jepar a dental assessment, you're well enough to get up," Sonj said dryly. "Come downstairs, before I stuff Cougar's cigarettes in any orifice he happens to have open."  
  
"He's smoking *again*?" Jepar said, wrinkling his nose. "He got through two packs yesterday."  
  
"One and a half," Sonj corrected. Jepar looked interested and she explained, "I threw the rest on the fire. He only came to watch Chatoya so he could smoke and brood in private. Speaking of, Jepar, why don't you let Chatoya get dressed in peace? She doesn't need an audience, much though you'd like to be one."   
  
She gave Chatoya a conspiratorial smile and both of them laughed as Jepar went slowly scarlet. And though Chatoya smiled, her head stayed as empty of emotions as ever, as though she stood inside an empty hall with only echoes bouncing around it.  
  
****  
  
"Okay," Cougar Redfern said six hours later. "If I had three wishes, I'd wish for...friends who didn't try to kill me...a solar system to dominate...and more wishes."  
  
There were groans. They were all sitting around the room, bright-eyed from dozens of cups of coffee with the TV on but muted. Chatoya laughed into Jepar's shoulder from where the two of them were collapsed on one of the sofas with his arm coiled round her waist, absently intertwining their fingers. Her head was tilted into the curve of his neck so she could feel his pulse beating, sense the life in him.  
  
"You can't wish for more wishes!" a very vivacious Sonj protested. They had been talking since Chatoya had wandered down, the first time she had seen them together and relaxed since her arrival four days ago.   
  
Over by the window, where he was chain-smoking furtively, Cougar shrugged. "Okay then...I wish for a different question."  
  
"More coffee?" Lisa said, getting up with the mugs.   
  
"Now *that* I can answer," he said, smiling. There was no malice to it and it transformed him, taking away the sullenness. "Sure, Lise. But are you certain it's legal to drink this much coffee before midday?"  
  
The made vampire rolled her eyes and disappeared into the kitchen. Sonj glanced at Chatoya from where she was perched on the coffee table, trying to write up her latest herbal atrocity. "You okay now, Toya?"  
  
"Fine," Chatoya said. All four of them had given her blood, and though she hadn't liked the idea much, she felt like she had had several nights of deep, dreamless sleep. "In fact...I haven't ever felt this good."  
  
It had briefly allowed her to read their minds; she hadn't known that Sonj had been bullied when she was younger or that Cougar had six siblings, including a twin sister of his own who had taken after his younger brother. She hadn't known that Jepar loved to windsurf and that Lisa could speak eight languages.  
  
She had to wonder what they had learned about her.  
  
"Pity," Sonj said. "That means school tomorrow. And the clique."  
  
"The clique?" Chatoya queried, puzzled. She lifted her head to see Jepar looked annoyed. "Not friends?"  
  
"I've had friendlier viruses," Cougar put in. "Let's just say...they're popular, they have the combined IQ of yeast in winter and they're beginning to suspect about us. They don't know about the Nightworld...but they've seen enough trashy movies."  
  
"And it's nothing to do with the fact you practically *told* them you were a vampire," Sonj said archly.  
  
"The clique," Jepar said softly, "don't stop at your average petty pranks. A few too many of them like to hunt with rifles and sterling bullets. Not all of them are like that...Rob Slivan, Sharla Ferrars, Tamara Slone, some of the others don't join in. But there are enough of them to make life difficult. And they like to make *our* lives difficult." She knew why; they were different. People feared that; it was enough to make them hate. Fear and pettiness often walked hand in hand, especially where humans were concerned.  
  
"Don't worry," Cougar said wickedly. "Compared to my brother, they're not even close to annoying."  
  
"Or compared to Cougar," Sonj put in and sent a streak of silver fire flying at the packet of cigarettes on the windowsill. He swore as they disintegrated and glared angrily at the half-breed, who just shrugged.  
  
The next day dawned clear and warm. The sun in the sky wasn't gold, but a shade of smouldering red that hung low in the sky, as if it had been filled with blood and heat. Something about it made Chatoya shiver, but for a second only before that smooth, glassy calm settled on her and she went down to a breakfast where Jepar and Cougar proved why they didn't cook very often after managing to burn toast, undercook bacon and explode several sausages.  
  
She should have trusted her instincts.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading! Comments would be loved, loved, loved! 


	12. Chapter Twelve

Thank you to the angels of you who reviewed last time round! Much love and mental Toblerone to you! Sorry posting this is taking so long...I have the memory and intelligence of a goldfish. Thanks to   
  
Magelet: okay :-) Fair enough. Thanks!  
  
OnKloudNyne: LOL, my mother is going for Dictator of the Year too (I swear, Cinderella has nothing, nothing on me.) And she always yells at me for spending time on the Net then promptly does exactly the same! Thanks everso :-)  
  
Comments much loved!  
  
Happy New Year,  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Twelve  
  
"Witch."  
  
The word was hissed so softly, so viciously, Chatoya wasn't sure if she had heard it right. But it caused a hot dart of anger to shoot down her spine as she turned around slowly. The part of her mind that floated, curiously detached from everything noted that there had been fear in the voice. Fear could be used.  
  
The corridors were crowded in the crush before lunch and for a moment, she saw only the blurs of colours as people hurried by.   
  
Then her eyes met a pair of sultry brown, ringed by thick eyelashes that glared hate at her. The girl who was lounging in her designer clothes and perfect make-up, for all the world like a komodo dragon sprawled in the sun, stood up slowly, tilting her head so the waves of chestnut hair tumbled down her back in a shining mass, spiky wisps falling across her forehead.  
  
She walked over. Chatoya watched in astonishment as people who couldn't be stopped by a tidal wave moved away, eyes averted and silent. No one, she noticed, stopped to watch the girl, even inconspicuously.  
  
"Get out," the girl demanded in her venomous voice. "Take your devil-worshipping somewhere else."  
  
"My *what*?" Chatoya said in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"  
  
Obviously people didn't talk to this girl like that. Her lip drew back in an elegant sneer as she inclined her head with obvious disgust. "We know all about you," she answered coldly. One manicured finger hovered by Chatoya's pentagram earring as though it was too loathsome too touch. "You and *that*. You probably thought you could bring your disgusting rituals here because no one knows you. Well, you're wrong."  
  
The conversation was obviously on a higher level of hatred than she was used to. This girl detested her.   
  
"Can we get something straight?" She touched the pentagram round her throat for reassurance as she always did, then cursed herself as the girl's gaze darkened. "I don't even believe in the devil. I don't dance naked or sacrifice children or do any of the crap someone's obviously been feeding you."  
  
"Liar." The childish insult caught her off guard. "You were on the ghost roads."  
  
"And?"   
  
"We all know what happens up there," the girl said flatly. "Just get out now and save us trouble."  
  
"What?" It was amazing; people like this should have died out with the dodo and yet they seemed to seep into every corner of society. "I'm not leaving! I *live* here. Do you attack everyone or am I just special?"  
  
"I only attack monsters like you," the girl said with breath-taking serenity.  
  
"I'm not going to leave just because you're too stupid to check your facts - devil worshipping? We're not in the nineteenth century anymore."  
  
"You'd think we were from your clothes," the girl said and gave a throaty laugh  
  
"It's a shame I don't have the attitude to match them then, isn't it?" Chatoya drawled pointedly.   
  
"We know how to deal with you," the girl hissed. "We know that-"  
  
"Ellie?" The voice was incredulous. And it belonged to the short dark-blond boy who had stopped in the middle of the crowd and now stepped out of it, looking mortified. "What are you *doing*?"  
  
He was human, she knew that at once from his casual walk. No fluid grace, no predatory smile. His eyes flicked to her and she saw they were a warm, velvet grey that were filled with contrition, set over a snub nose and a wide, laughing mouth that was set in confused lines right now.  
  
The girl he called Ellie raised her black, arching brows. "She's one of them, Rob. She lives with the freaks." Her pouting mouth curled in a malicious smile. "And you know what else? They're part of a cult."  
  
Chatoya laughed. It was just so *absurd*. "Where do you get this from?" she said, shaking her head.  
  
Rob of the grey eyes and chivalrous soul smiled with her. "Ellie," he murmured soothingly. "No offence, but that's crap. You don't like them, but a cult? Who told you that?"   
  
Ellie turned her disdainful stare on him. "She's not the only new one. You've met the new guy, didn't you *listen* to him? Well, he used to live where *she* did and he knows her. You can tell just by looking at him. He wouldn't lie."  
  
The new guy? She wanted to know who he was and how he claimed to know her.  
  
Rob looked sceptical. "I'm sure. Look, they're weird, but they're not that weird!"   
  
"God, Rob, how naive *are* you?" Ellie's designer deathstare looked Chatoya up and down. Once, this girl would have intimidated her. Now? Chatoya felt nothing. Nothing at all except cold contempt for this foolish girl who thought she knew everything and knew nothing. "Look at her! She's got those freaky stars everywhere. And look at her eyes!"  
  
"They're very pretty," was all the laconic Rob said.   
  
Ellie's conceit knew no bounds. "Pretty? Oh, I'm sure you'll still think that when she carves you into-"  
  
Slam.  
  
Chatoya opened her locker into Ellie's perfect nose. There was a nasty, gristly sound and Ellie screamed.  
  
And one thought shot through Chatoya's head; Goddess, he's *right*.  
  
Then the lovely human was crouching on the floor, holding her nose with red bubbling between her hands, making pathetic sounds. The spill of glowing hair shielded her face from the crowd, but not from the witch.  
  
Maybe she should have felt sorry or horrified or contrite. But all Chatoya could think of was something a boy with no compassion had told her; that there was no better song than the sound of screams.   
  
He was right. It was something she had never understood before, because there had always been things like horror and embarrassment to get in the way. It was sweet to hear. It was good to know that she had power over this arrogant, pathetic excuse for a human. She gave Ellie a chillingly wild smile.  
  
"Ellie!" Considerate, correct Rob was beside her, trying to pull away her hands to see the damage. Ellie was sobbing hard, snuffling and gasping. Her shoulders shook, pain evident in every movement. Her eyes, no longer cool or sultry, looked at Chatoya with a haunted, childlike horror. "Ellie, are you all right?"  
  
The corridor crowd had stilled, heads turning at unmistakable thud of metal on flesh. They were silent, statuesque now and Chatoya could see in them the crowd mentality. The self-preservation that held them back. The glee at the spectacle because it wasn't *them* coiled on the floor.  
  
Rob's velvet eyes were dark and baffled when he glanced at Chatoya. "Why did you do that?" he asked quietly, trying to prise her shaking hands from her nose. "You *hurt* her. God knows what the damage is."  
  
"I got tired of people like her," she snapped curtly. She grabbed her bag and stalked off down the corridor, the crowd parting fearfully before her, as surely as people once had for the emperors of old.   
  
Then she caught a glimpse of blue, the cobalt of spiky hair and halted for a breath, her eyes meeting a pair that were lazy, cruel and a bright, flaming blue.   
  
"Just a mirror," he mouthed and smiled craftily. She could see the anger burning underneath and cared not an iota. She stared back.  
  
Her eyes were the colour of swamps, murky and unreadable but somehow dangerous. It would be easy to be swallowed into her stare and lost. Because looking at her, one thing was clear. She didn't care at all.  
  
"That's right. Just a mirror," she murmured.   
  
His vampire ears could hear it and he blinked, just once, then slithered away up a stairway. She didn't bother to follow. He wasn't worth the effort.  
  
****  
  
"What the *hell* happened today?" Sonj said as Chatoya sat down with a cafeteria lunch. Most of it actually looked edible, which came as a pleasant surprise. "You and Eleanor Saxoine? A locker? Devil worshipping? I've heard a lot of weird stuff today and I want to know what's true."  
  
She had found the four of them sitting round a picnic table outside. All of them had food, but only Sonj seemed to be actually eating. Jepar was looking at her, eyes concerned, but that changed into something else as she sat down. Something guarded that she couldn't read. Cougar Redfern was grinning and Lisa looked startled, the whites of her eyes vibrant against her dark skin.  
  
"It's all true," Chatoya said coolly, examining her lunch with mild interest. Edible, if not appetizing. It would do. "She called me a devil-worshipper. All of us, in fact. I took offence and took an opportunity. I'm sure she won't do that again."  
  
"Well, next time she starts insulting us," Cougar declared gleefully, "She'll use a telephone."  
  
"What was it you did?" She couldn't read Jepar's face, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun.   
  
Chatoya shrugged and pushed the pasta around with her fork. Not enough herbs, she thought. And the tomato sauce smelled as if it had a little too much garlic in it. "I opened my locker."  
  
"Into her nose," Sonj finished, eye glowing with thrill. "I didn't believe it when I heard. I mean, I haven't known you long, but...you don't seem the violent type. Still, I bet it was less serious than rumour said-"  
  
"Hopefully, I broke it," Chatoya cut in and tasted the pasta. Hmm. Not as bad as she had thought. When she looked up, all four of them were looking at her sceptically. She wondered why they were so surprised.  
  
"You what?" Cougar said recovering first.   
  
She made her voice clearer. She must have mumbled. "Hopefully, I broke it."  
  
"We heard," Lisa said in a voice that had none of its usual confidence. "But...I...*why*?"  
  
Chatoya shrugged. "She irritated me with her pathetic cries and petty threats. I decided to show her a slightly more effective threat. I did. The end; and they all lived happily ever after."  
  
"Did you inject something?" Sonj said frankly. "That is *definitely* not like you! You nearly fell over apologising yesterday. You don't just go around breaking noses! It's not..."   
  
"Nice," Jepar said softly. "It's not nice, is it, Chatoya?"  
  
She had the feeling it was a test of some sort. "Who's to say what's nice?" she said. "I just know I didn't like what she accused me of. Maybe her friends will think twice before they play any 'pranks' on us."  
  
She met that emerald gaze. Stare for stare, his searching, hers open. What had she to hide? No emotion, surely and that was the only thing people ever saw in your face, wasn't it? Only what you showed them.  
  
"Either that," Cougar drawled. "Or they're going to be feeling like revenge."  
  
Sonj's smile was grim. "They don't believe it's a dish best served cold." The knife she was holding tapped on the table. "I know that from experience."  
  
"They won't be pulling any stupid stunts." They all turned to stare at the owner of the warm voice. Rob approached their table warily, keeping well away from Chatoya. She found it dimly amusing and stared at him to see his reaction. He ignored her. "They're spooked. And that new boy's only making it worse."  
  
"New boy?" Cougar queried, black eyebrows rising to meet his coal hair.   
  
"Blue," Chatoya murmured and carried on eating. She heard sharp intakes of breath, a curse, a phrase in a language she didn't understand and ignored them all. She could handle Blue.  
  
"You've met him?" Rob's startled face, ordinary when compared to their indescribable aura of power that enhanced the exotic looks. "He seems to know you, but I got the impression you didn't like him much."  
  
"I'd rather socialise with a verruca," Cougar Redfern, master of tact, replied promptly. "Yeah. We know Blue." The hazel eyes brightened to gold, the sun rising in his stare. "We don't get on, Rob, isn't that right? You think I'm a jerk and I think you're a jock."  
  
"Sounds about right," Rob said, half-smiling. No, they didn't like each other, Chatoya judged, but they respected one another.   
  
"Okay. Then I'll give you the only piece of advice I'm *ever* going to. Watch Blue. He's not right."  
  
"I know." The calm reply startled them all. Rob glanced around, then sat down by Sonj, ignoring her furious flush. "Look, I'm not completely stupid," he said. "I know there's something up with you guys. I don't know...sometimes I feel like I'm watching the X-Files. I don't want to know what it is, just in case I'm right because I know what happens to people who find out dark and deadly secrets."  
  
"We're a little nicer than the X-Files," Sonj said with what could only be described as hopeless yearning.   
  
He took her hand, smiling in his tender, human way. "I figured that, Sonya." His eyes didn't move to Chatoya as he said, "Most of you, anyway." The smile faded. "This Blue guy. He hates you. He's been filling my friends' heads with stories. I know you don't like them, but they're scared of you. Don't scare them any more. Or they will start hunting you. Tam and me...well, we've stopped them for now."  
  
"Why the hell would you and Tamara Slone care about us?" Cougar demanded.   
  
Rob kept looking at Sonj, eyes travelling over her features. Another case of hormonal imbalances, the cold ruthless part of Chatoya that seemed to have taken over whispered. Love? Save it for the trashy novels.  
  
"It's not you I care about," he said. "And...Jepar helped Tam's sister a while back. Good enough for you?"  
  
Cougar shut up.   
  
"Anyway, I didn't come over for that," Rob said. "Do you have my history folder?" he asked Sonj. "I think I left it by your bag and you might have picked it up by mistake. I need it for this afternoon."  
  
Sonj clapped a hand over her mouth. "Damn, it's back at the house. I can go get it?" she offered.   
  
It was interesting to watch these fascinating little courtship rituals, Chatoya decided. She couldn't fathom why she had resented the spell so at first. It had allowed her to step back, to watch and begin to understand the people about her far more easily.  
  
"Please, Sonya," Rob said with his shy smile. "I have to go with Ellie to the hospital now." For the first time, his grey eyes met Chatoya's, reserved and mistrustful. "You really hurt her. I know she's a bitch sometimes, but she didn't deserve that."  
  
"Did I deserve to have her biased opinions and threats forced on me?" Chatoya said quietly. Rob shook his head and got up, walking with Sonj to the campus entrance before the redhead set off back to the house and Rob headed back indoors, presumably to wherever Eleanor was festering away.  
  
"Well," Lisa said with nauseating cheer, "I had no idea he knew so much!"   
  
Jepar's mouth curved, the green eyes lighting slightly to blaze in his tanned skin like will-o'-the-wisps. "Rob's smarter than Cougar makes out. But I don't get why he called Sonj 'Sonya'."  
  
Lisa's white teeth showed in a brief grin. "Well, Sonj is a Nordic name. The 'j' is actually pronounced as a 'y'." She chuckled. "Rob asked me a few weeks back. The poor boy's got it bad."  
  
"They're an unlikely pair," Cougar said lazily. "He's popular, got everything he wants...and what he wants is our Sonj, half-breed, half-blind, half-mad. What do they see in each other?"  
  
Jepar and Lisa exchanged pleased glances, as if remembering something. "Whatever it is," the blond shapeshifter murmured, "Without her, he's only half a person too."  
  
"How sweet," the lamia sneered. "Romantic notions aside, we have bigger problems to worry about. My little brother for a start."   
  
"Is there any way we can track him?" Lisa fiddled with the braids of her black hair, beads clicking. "Toya, aren't there spells?"  
  
"There's something called a mirror spell," Chatoya said indifferently. "It allows you to become them for a while; use their senses, know what they do. That should be enough to discover his intentions."  
  
"Don't you need to be linked by blood for that?" the African girl queried, eyebrows dipping pensively.  
  
The witch's moss green eyes were wintry and reckless. "He tried to kill me. I tried to kill him. He drained most of the blood from my body. I'd say we're pretty close."  
  
The passionless way she said it made Jepar bite his lip, worry flashing through him briefly before he shook it away. Everyone had their own way of dealing. It was just...lately, Chatoya had begun to remind him uncomfortably of Gatajri and her uncaring, devoid face.  
  
No. She would never be like that.  
  
He was imagining things, that was all.  
  
That was all.  
  
****  
  
"Look, are you sure about this?" Lisa enquired, peering at Chatoya's face anxiously. "This is no novice's spell; this is dangerous. If you need such a strong link...it's dangerous. I'm no witch, but I know that."  
  
"I'm sure," Chatoya answered mildly. They were heading for the one place in the school where they had mirrors. She pushed open the door to the bathroom and checked inside. "There are people." She didn't notice the contempt she put on the last word or the quick glance Lisa gave her.  
  
"Allow me," the African girl said confidently and grinned. "I learned this from Sonj."   
  
She strode in and peering through the doorway, Chatoya saw the vampire sweep someone's make-up onto the floor with a loud clatter as the girl gasped and leapt back from Lisa as if she might burn her.   
  
"Can you get out? We'd like to have a satanic ritual in here, and you'll really spoil the atmosphere." A pause, then her tone altered to become thoughtful. "Unless you'd like to donate some blood. We ran a little low last time and the demon almost got away...what? It doesn't hurt!"   
  
A flurry of squawks and then girls fluttered out, eyes panicked and make-up half-repaired. Lisa appeared behind them, calling in those collected tones, "No, really, we're low on AB."   
  
Chatoya looked at the vampire, who grinned. "Well, it's not *my* fault they're so gullible. And maybe Sonj is right...it is fun scaring them." She giggled, and for a moment wasn't the daunting, calm tribal warrior, but an ordinary teenager. "You need help setting up the spell?"  
  
The witch shook her head. "No. Just stand watch outside. I don't know if this'll work, but if it does, it's important no one else looks in any of the mirrors. It can interrupt the spell and I don't know what'll happen." And, she added silently, I don't think it's a good idea in case you find out just why I'm so closely linked to that boy.  
  
"Fair enough." Lisa leaned against a wall, still smiling. "I hope none of the clique were in there. Cougar got lynched last time and gods, the damage they did was pretty nasty." She shook her head. "Mind you, Cougar's the first person I've met who's actually *improved* by pain."  
  
"Wonder if it runs in the family," Chatoya murmured thoughtfully. Her mind considered possibilities that would have shocked her before. Torture. Spells. "Death would probably improve them even more."  
  
She didn't see Lisa's shocked face. Something, the made vampire thought grimly, is very wrong here. Maybe I shouldn't let her do this spell...but what can it hurt? It won't kill her - she's assured us of that much anyway.  
  
The vampire laid her doubts to rest as the witch walked in and shut the door.   
  
Chatoya stared at the row of mirrors. She wasn't even sure she should be doing this spell. Most Crones would think twice before attempting it. But things were different now, weren't they? She was stronger. She could handle anything.  
  
She shrugged, fearless, and looked into a mirror.  
  
And she cast the spell to see her reflection and see someone else's soul.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading! Comments loved! 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Much love and thanks to those divinities of you who commented last time round :-) I hope you all had a good New Year! Thanks to:  
  
Meg: No, she didn't deserve it, and it was cold...Chatoya's started to be changed by not feeling. She's not a violent person - but if you have nothing to guide you, then you have nothing to stop you either. Thanks!  
  
OnKloudNyne: I have to do a fair bit on sneaking on the computer to get anything done myself ;-) Parents - who'd have 'em? Yeah, I think that's scarily true - everyone does have the power and the potential to hurt. Thanks!  
  
Dark Fortuna: Hearing and obeying :-) Thanks!  
  
Comments much loved! I hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Thirteen  
  
A mirror.  
  
Smooth, silvery glass showed her the planes of her face as she stared into her own impassive eyes. She looked at her pupils, focusing on the darkness that seemed to swell and grow the longer she stared. Until she thought she could see time disappearing into that darkness, swallowed by the hunger that prowled there.   
  
The ebb of the world fell away and there was just the darkness. She was no longer aware of her hands gripping the smooth porcelain of the sink in one of the bathrooms. Instead, she focused.  
  
"Your darkness is my darkness."  
  
The darkness began to revolve and shift as if something pulsed beneath it. She leaned closer, until her breath fogged the mirror below.   
  
"Your senses are mine."  
  
Something appeared, pushing its way to the surface. Heat assailed her, tickling on her skin as though even from the vast distance, the tiny blue flame burned with an intensity to equal that of the sun, rustling and hissing very softly  
  
"Your touch is my touch."  
  
Her body jolted. And again, again as if it matched some strange, frantic dance rhythm. The flame in the darkness danced with each shake, its heat becoming more intense.   
  
"Your scents are my scents."  
  
The poignant aroma of garlic. Of cheap aftershave, sweat, the distinctive tang of fear, dozens of alien odours that meant people. Her nose wrinkled, flared, trying to ignore the nauseating combination.  
  
"Your sounds are my sounds."  
  
Noise rushing in on her like air into a sealed room. Chattering and clattering, but dimming.   
  
"Your sight is my sight."   
  
The flame in the darkness, growing larger, looming around her faster and faster until her world was heat and light, heat and light, blue and burning and hurting.   
  
Her sight cleared and she realised she was walking away from the cafeteria, towards the edges of campus. The sky smoky blue around that smouldering orange sun, the remnants of the blood dawn still darkening it.   
  
"Your emotions are my emotions."  
  
Flames of feelings seared through her, made her shriek silently. The mirror shivered, the image with it, but she drew on iron control that was not hers, would never be hers, and found herself experiencing the feelings of a boy who had no compassion, who had no hope, who had only coldness and a love of killing.  
  
"I am you."  
  
Mists began to roll out from the light, ringing her in burning, feathery smoke that was not grey or black, but pale azure. She blinked frantically, barely aware of anything except that she had to see what was behind the smoky air, see the thing that hissed like a rattlesnake and pushed waves of heat ahead of it.  
  
Light erupted into her vision.  
  
****  
  
Idiots.  
  
Blue stared impassively across at the vapidly pretty face of Corby Ruggiero, the brunette athletic star and amusingly petty girl. Getting information out of them was like trying to break every bone in a vampire's body; every time you thought you had finished, you found there was more. It was almost like hard work.  
  
So what did he know?   
  
That Corby and all her friends hated everyone else with a mindless, nearly fanatical passion that had no reason. It was fascinating to watch their faces flash with anger and imagined injustice as they gibbered on.   
  
That Lisa Ochai was a vampire, Jepar Jubatus a cheetah shapeshifter and Sonj Jameson a half-breed witch-vampire. Sonj Jameson. A violation of the law. Something that he would have to deal with.   
  
But not as important as Chatoya Irkil. It seemed he had made a mistake.   
  
The first he had made since the Nightfire organisation had sought him out three years ago.   
  
Nightfire. The name that was secret and stealthy, the name that killed and purified. The name that had lived before the Nightworld and before Circle Daybreak and would live on after them. Nightfire. The elitist sect of some dozen operatives in each state; a small number but an organisation that accounted for more deaths in one month than the Nightworld in one year.  
  
Nightfire kept the races pure. It removed the half-breeds, the fools, the ones who cast illegal spells, the ones who had seen what they should not. The ones who thought what was *right* actually mattered, the ones who tried to discover them and usually discovered pain they could hardly imagine.   
  
It had existed since the time of the dragons; it had kept its sacred secrets and Bane Malefici had become a part of it. A highly placed, powerful part. The responsibility didn't bother him. After all, if Nightfire didn't like the way he ran the Nevada sector, they'd remove his privileges; his internal organs, for a start.  
  
When they first heard of Joshua Irkil, the Daybreaker who was toying with dragon powers, it had been through their witches. They kept a close eye on all the dragons through spells that had been lost to the Nightworld. And one of them was waking, very slowly, but still...it was vaguely irksome.  
  
Tracing the spells back, the witches had discovered Joshua Irkil. Blue had volunteered to kill him, as he would be in the area anyway, and anyone else who knew about the dragons. It wasn't yet time to wake them. That came later, when there was a real need to blow the entire earth into fragments.  
  
And he had killed Joshua Irkil. But due to the failure of Nightfire's sorceress, the Daybreak witch had managed to cast a spell that killed three of Blue's people, though that was no great loss, and broken sixteen of his bones, which had made hunting anyone else down quite trying for a few minutes. Although Blue had chased Joshua's slender, sweet-faced sister through the streets, she had eluded him. Needless to say, Nightfire's sorceress lost her privileges when he got back. The novices always needed practice, after all.  
  
And because they were twins, he had assumed Joshua had told her the spells.   
  
As it turned out, he had been wrong. Still, that was no excuse not to kill her.  
  
"Blue?" It was the airhead-redhead who snapped him from his pleasant reverie. "I asked what you think of this place so far?"  
  
"The night life is dead," he drawled, amusing himself with double-meanings that none of these morons would ever pick up on. "But you make up for it," His excellent memory supplied him with her name at once. "Sharla." He grinned at her. "I'm sure you'd be very tasty."  
  
His eyes followed another redhead through the cafeteria window. Rob's girl, the one the human boy thought of very loudly. Blue had no qualms about using telepathy on the humans around him. If they couldn't shield, well, it was practically an invitation.  
  
The witch-vampire. The monster. His eyes followed the half-breed girl as she strode out of the campus, ignoring the vacant charms of the redheaded human beside him.  
  
He stood up and strode off, without an explanation. His long legs ate up the ground, minutes flying by as he slunk away from the campus. No one stopped him or questioned him, as it should be.  
  
Down the road that he had driven the stolen Fiat. Into the miniature maze of twisting roads where the houses lay. Down to the house where he had sent Nicos with the Irkil boy's head.   
  
A flare of shock.   
  
Shock? But... it hit like a lightning bolt. Not-his-shock. Blue stopped. Someone was in his mind. Not someone. *Her*. Only...for a second, he could have sworn that there was something different about her.  
  
He remembered when he had seen her face-to-face that first time. How terrified she had been, clinging to that blond shapeshifter like a limpet, and how he had met her eyes and seen something there, lurking under her innocence and her fear. Something that was dark and prowling and filled with the love of killing. Something that had made them equal for a brief second.  
  
And it was there again now, only it was so strong he felt as though he truly was looking in a mirror.   
  
For a second, he vacillated between killing her and finding out more about this dark power that lay coiled in her like a sleeping cobra.   
  
Then he flicked power at her, casually as if he brushed a fly away and felt her recoil, a short scream arcing in his head.  
  
She was gone.  
  
He shrugged and carried on.  
  
****  
  
Fire scorching across her vision in bright blue streaks that cut through every defence she had, harsh as cold blades. Agonising, searing across her skin until she couldn't even feel her body in the mass of pain.  
  
She screamed.  
  
The sound knifed through the air and to any observer who had run to the source of that banshee shriek, the sight would have made them cower and retreat. Lisa Ochai, waiting outside, froze and flung open the door, deciding that now was the best time to ignore what Chatoya had told her about not disturbing the spell.  
  
The light blazed from the mirror, ringing the tall girl whose black hair poured back from the force of the heat, mists sinking and swirling around her legs and waist. Her eyes were fixed and staring at the blinding blue light, her hands gripping the edges of the sink so tightly they were white. Her lips were barely parted and yet a continuous shriek filled the air, never pausing to draw breath, trembling on that piercing note.   
  
Black threaded through the blue light, cracks appearing across the shining surface. The sound rose in intensity as the room filled with withering heat, every wall seeming to strain outwards under the pressure that slammed back the doors of cubicles in unison, the echo swallowed into sound and heat.  
  
Then the scream stopped.  
  
Chatoya leaned closer, despite the fire that tried to push her away, eyes locked into a scene that only she could see, moss green eyes growing wider and wider as her pupil shrunk into a coal-black dot, face taut with tension, even as Lisa tried to wrench the witch's hands away and found that the girl had suddenly gained a strength that even she, a vampire, couldn't break.  
  
And she was saying words Lisa couldn't quite catch, words she was sure were in no spell ever written.  
  
"We are One. Bound by the soul, bound by the blood. Heed me not..." and then strange words that were in no language she had ever known. Harsh, cracking syllables that forced images into Lisa's head; images of fire burning up the earth, of heat and hurt, of people fleeing.  
  
Images of dragons.  
  
Horrified, Lisa knew then that something had happened, that Chatoya was using dragon magick as her brother had but without being aware of it. When she had shared blood with Chatoya to heal her, as they all had, Lisa had known the witch had only ordinary magick, not this black, fatal sorcery.  
  
But however hard she fought, she couldn't stop the enchantment. And then Lisa looked into the mirror and she was trapped as it drew her in and she saw what Chatoya saw.  
  
The spell rolled on.  
  
****  
  
He smiled and stopped in front of the house.   
  
The door? Unlocked? He tested it and the smile widened as it swung open easily. Trusting fools.   
  
Inside. The hall, comfortable and filled with pictures. He picked one up, tapping the metal frame. Cheap alloy, probably bought from a market by someone who actually believed it was the content that was important.  
  
And the content. Four people by a lake, all of them grinning those charmingly fake smiles people produced whenever someone pointed a camera at them, all bar one of them in wetsuits. His brother, laughing and soaked with his eyes turned to gold fire by the camera, hauling a windsurfing board out.   
  
The shapeshifter, golden hair half-dry and glittering, sprawled lazily on the board with his head tilted back almost into the water, towards the camera . The made vampire, halfway through pulling on a glove, sitting by the shapeshifter's feet with her legs dangling in the water, neither making any effort to help his brother.  
  
And the abomination, the half breed, in ordinary clothes but dripping from where someone had to have thrown her in, with not one but two silvery eyes squinting in the sunlight.  
  
How cute. How quaint. How comradely. He dropped the frame and heard glass shatter as it bounced from the wall. Then he picked his way through the hall, through the kitchen and out into the back garden where he could sense his prey and her thoughts, picking up the folder she had left outside when she gave up homework to sunbathe.  
  
For a moment, he stood silent. The eyesore, the half-breed didn't notice him.  
  
"Hi," he drawled, feeling pleasurable anticipation at the thought of this kill. Not much of a hunt, but then he hadn't joined this business for the chase. "Remember me?"   
  
The girl turned around, her sleek red hair swinging to spread like a cloak over her shoulder.  
  
Old ripped jeans. Cropped top with a black rose on it. Rose pendant. Rose-petal mouth, blunt nose. An eyepatch. And one shocked, silvery eye staring back at him.  
  
Sonj Jameson.  
  
****  
  
The mirror exploded.  
  
Dozens of silvery shards launched outwards, blue light reflecting and dancing in them as they shattered against the walls, the ceiling, the floor, scraping on any surface they touched. There was a sound like thousands of windchimes clashing and echoing, massive pressure on her body that ground and crushed her bones while that high shrieking ran on and on.  
  
I have to stop it! Lisa thought. I have to stop it or it will kill us both.  
  
She tried to keep hold of Chatoya, but the force that had thrust the mirror outwards hurled her backwards as if she were a scrap of paper on a breeze. She cried out as her head slammed into a divider between two cubicles and pain cracked through her skull, her teeth clashing painfully.   
  
That was what made Chatoya blink as she realised that the spell hadn't ended but that something, somewhere was wrong.   
  
She had to...there was something, wasn't there? But half of her was still in that garden, watching a girl who was backing away to pick up a pair of garden shears that someone with some sense had left out where Sonj could do some damage and...  
  
No, she mustn't get caught there. There was another person she could be where she had to...  
  
End the spell.   
  
That was it. The words fell from her lips without her even aware she was saying anything as if triggered, the banshee shriek in her head diminishing until there was only blessed silence. And she knew who she was again with a calm certainty. She didn't have all those emotions to try to cope with.  
  
She opened her eyes cautiously.  
  
The black fire glowed where the mirror had been, dark as endless night and cool as mountain water. All around lay scraps of silver like the heaven's sky frozen on the floor.   
  
As she watched, mildly startled, the stars picked themselves up and spinning through the air, began to gather on the mirror, black fire rippling through the gaps until the mirror was complete. For a second, dark fire slid over the glassy surface.  
  
Then the mirror was whole. There was no sign anything had occurred at all, bar the two long shallow slashes along the insides of her wrists where shards of glass must have caught her.   
  
But why are the cuts identical? A tiny voice asked, a voice she pushed down ruthlessly. That part of her was long gone.   
  
She turned around to see Lisa slumped awkwardly on the floor, riddled with cuts that were already healing. Good. It was better that way. Because Chatoya knew now what she had to do, where she had to go. And if she was to be in time, she would have to go now.  
  
Climbing out of the window, onto the flat green of the campus was easy. She ignored the astonished looks of people, the conversations that sprang up as she began to run to the exit. Someone had shut the gate, she noticed dimly.   
  
So what? the rest of her said.   
  
Her black hair streamed behind her, long legs cutting easily across the ground in the designer jeans she was glad Gatajri had persuaded her to buy - they were tough enough to withstand anything. And then there wasn't time to think of anything except that she hadn't time to stop and open a gate.  
  
She hadn't time.  
  
****  
  
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Cougar drawled, "but isn't that your girlfriend trying out for the Olympics?"  
  
"What?" Jepar looked up. He had been distant all lunch, Cougar thought and guessed it was something to do with Chatoya's strangeness today.   
  
"Look!" The vampire didn't need to gesture to the slender figure that was running towards the closed gate at speeds that were only going to lead to a trip to the hospital. "Same clothes. Same hair. Same girl."  
  
"Where's she going?" Jepar said, emerald eyes narrowing into blades. "She's going to hurt herself..."  
  
Both of them watched as the girl didn't stop as she reached the gate and they both flinched as she reached them...then stared as there was a ghastly creaking sound and Chatoya was pelting down the road.   
  
"What the hell was that?" a shaken Cougar demanded. Where Chatoya had been, the bars of the iron gate were bent apart as if a giant hand had wrenched them.  
  
The shapeshifter was staring too. "I have no idea...but what did the spell show her that made her run like that?" Silence as green and hazel eyes met. "Where's Lisa?"  
  
Both of them were up and moving, ignoring anyone who came near. Corby Ruggiero opened her mouth to sneer as the pair cut through the cafeteria and then lolled back uselessly as Cougar slammed a telepathic punch at her.   
  
No one else thought to stop the pair, as different as night and day, the shapeshifter with his green eyes spitting fireworks and the vampire with that false, startling and somehow *sharp* smile glittering.   
  
They met Lisa in the corridor as she ran towards the campus, only a few grazes left on her face now, but her face was panicked and as she saw them, words tumbled out in a flurry.  
  
"I saw the spell," she gasped. "I should have listened but she *screamed* and I went to try to stop it. And...I saw what he's planning. We got it wrong. It's not Chatoya he's after, at least not anymore." Huge shaking breath. "It's Sonj."  
  
"What?" the pair chorused, staring at her as if she had gone insane.  
  
"Blue's gone to kill her," Lisa said, trying not to shake. "And Chatoya's gone to stop him."  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading :-) Comments would be much adored. 


	14. Chapter Fourteen

My thanks all the lovely angels of you who commented last time round :-) Sorry this took a while; I've been ill. (Fun.) Thanks to:  
  
Meg: Chatoya is probably up to coping with what she saw; Lisa, I think not :-) Yes, they don't have an easy time of it! Thanks!  
  
Kitty Katt: I have to stop somewhere! And that was it :-) Thanks everso!  
  
Baloo: This is the downside of posting the sequel up first :-) Blue won't get everything his own way - but then again, neither will Toya. Merci beaucoup!  
  
Rain: The significance of the slashes comes in a couple of chapters (and it is significant.) She was so - intent on getting after Blue that she basically used her magick like a bettering ram and prised the gates apart. Thanks muchly - I hope you enjoy!  
  
OnkloudNyne: If you've run out of praise go for criticism! I am not averse to it. I've been told cliffhangers are one of my worst and most irritating habits, but I really can't help it :-) Thank you for all the compliments - I'm knocked out!  
  
Spellcial: Can anyone stop Blue when he has his mind set on something? For me, this is posting pretty soon! Alas, Heath Ledger's DNA is proving elusive ::mutters darkly:: Maybe I'll aim for Orlando Bloom's next... Thanks!  
  
Comments are very muchly loved, criticism is equally adored. I hope you enjoy reading!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Fourteen  
  
No time.  
  
Chatoya was running with loping steps that tore away the distance between her and the two people she was focused on. She could sense them in her minds like gnats, far away and humming with energy.   
  
She was powerful. More powerful than she had ever been before, with magick not a distant pool of water as it had always been, but a leaping fire that was crackling under her skin, just waiting for her to tame it. So powerful and yet unable to move any faster, to reach those people who were so important.  
  
She wasn't even sure why. There had been a time when everything had been certain and she had known why people were important, why everything *mattered*. However...now, something had gone and she wasn't sure quite what, but suddenly there didn't seem to be anything to do except watch the world spin by.  
  
She had seen the boy who was her soulmate and she had known what he knew and understood what it was that had drawn her to him. He, too, had no cares, no duty to follow the morals, the workings of society.   
  
But she wouldn't let him hurt Sonj Jameson just because her blood wasn't pure. That wasn't his concern. And Sonj had helped her, had kept her alive when her soulmate had tried to kill her. Chatoya *owed* Sonj and now she would pay the debt.  
  
Speed. She needed to move faster. She reached for the magick and ignored the way it burned her. The spell seemed engrained in her head; she was murmuring the syllables of it before she even knew and then the trees and buildings at the roadside began to fly by. There was pain on her feet; she knew the road would cut her shoes and eventually her feet to ribbons but that didn't matter. There was only one thing left that mattered.   
  
After that was gone, she wasn't sure what - or who - would remain.  
  
****  
  
"This is not good," Cougar Redfern hissed in typical understatement as he, Jepar and Lisa ran through the corridors. "My little brother almost *killed* Toya last time and this time, he'll finish the job. His idea of mercy is leaving all internal organs in neat piles. She'll save Sonj and he'll kill her."  
  
"And where's her goddamn ghost-twin with the reassurance this time?" Jepar's eyes glittered fiercely.   
  
The three of them made a formidable sight; Cougar with his dark hair and eyes like amber mixed with gold, unbelievably inhuman and not caring at all. Jepar, striding sinuously, his hair moving as if an invisible wind brushed it, looking as though a tail should be lashing from side to side. Lisa's mouth drawn tight and her skin glowing as though the sun beat down on it, her feet snapping on the floor viciously.  
  
"From what I know about ghosts - and I've met a fair few," the girl said tightly, "they're on a limited timetable. Josh is what we call a wreccan, a ghost bound to someone else by a close link, usually twins or triplets. They have from the time they died until dawn to walk on the mortal plane. After that, they belong to wherever the dead go."  
  
"So no eerie help until evening?" Cougar kicked a door open ferociously. "Great. We're on our own."  
  
"So's Sonj," Lisa said and that shut them all up.  
  
****  
  
Here. Finally.  
  
The door was shut neatly. And what lay behind would come leaping out at her like a tiger. This was where it stopped being a dream she was living. This was when reality came crashing out like a hurricane.   
  
Through the hallway, barely noticing the glass that lay smashed on the floor and the pain that flared in her feet. Out into the kitchen, to the open doorway and seeing the figure lying there, pathetic and limp.  
  
Blood. There was so much of it that it looked as if someone had hurled a red, clinging cloth over Sonj, as if she had been bathed in rose petals. That crown of sleek, fiery hair was tumbled beneath her, blazing against the ice of her skin. Fire and ice.  
  
In Chatoya's head, pain leapt like a tiger raking its claws across her. It was so intense she fell, grabbing at the doorframe to keep upright and gasping as her nails snapped. Icy-cold detachment vanished and she was blazing with emotion before the spell leapt up like a wall of stone shielding her from the awful reality.  
  
Except for that treacherous thought that pounded on her head like a macabre bass beat.   
  
Sonj is dead.  
  
He killed her.  
  
It's my fault.  
  
And then Chatoya was stumbling forwards, the pain in her head so intense she could barely think, crushing her like the weight of the ocean and threatening to spill and shatter at any moment. She knelt down beside the girl and all she could think were stupid, incoherent things that didn't make any sense.  
  
Blood roses, dozens of tiny roses still blooming on that pale white skin. Blood roses pushing at Chatoya's temples, thorns stabbing at her head until all she could see was red, red flowing, red burning, red drowning and choking.  
  
You killed her, she hurled at a boy whose eyes blazed like alien skies, whose heart held only shadows. You killed her and I will kill you for it. I will watch you die, I will hear you scream and I will do as you did.   
  
I will stand back and laugh while you suffer.  
  
"I'm so sorry," she said gently. "I'm so sorry I wasn't strong enough. I should never have run from him." There would be no answer. No redemption, no justice. But there was.  
  
"Don't..." A rasp. Half choking, death rattling in the voice like a snake coiled to strike.   
  
She stared. Oh Goddess. She was alive. Still alive under all that blood, under gaping gashes that bled as if she had been mauled by some raging predator, clinging on though her life lay around in a spreading pool.  
  
"Sonj?" she managed to say, hearing a high wheeze in her voice, the pain in her head so terrible that her hands had clawed and a high siren shriek sliced through her thoughts, a keen razor.  
  
"It hurts." A plaintive sigh, soft as the brush of a butterfly's wing.  
  
"I know." But she didn't. She couldn't imagine. "If you wait, I can get the others. They can change you." It was a falsehood. Nothing could save her. Not vampire blood, not magick, not even the gods themselves.  
  
"Don't lie." That one eye looked up at her, a slender rim of silver around a vast pupil, as if the shadows had fallen into her gaze and waiting to flow out and swallow her whole. But that wasn't the worst of it.  
  
Fear lay over her face like a moth's wing, ghastly, gripping horror that writhed and fought with death.   
  
Not the strong, brash girl that Chatoya knew, who loved the thrill of the fight, whose mind was skewed and yet somehow filled with generosity and hope. Who had been rejected by life because she wasn't perfect, and who had managed to find perfection in someone else.  
  
Just a frightened child, really. Tiny and piteous, ice and fire on blood and grass.   
  
"Will you...do something?" Sonj's voice fading so she had to lean close, so close she could smell blood.  
  
"Of course," she said tightly through the horrible clawed hands that gripped at her head.   
  
Josh's words flicked through her head. ~ Spells like that don't stop emotion. It's just like putting a dam in your mind. Everything builds up...and someday, it'll snap. ~  
  
And it was snapping and it was more horrible than she could imagine. The force of the emotions shook her so she could barely concentrate on the real world. Emotions slapped at her like tidal waves until she wasn't sure what she feeling; gripped by irrational anger, by grief so intense it broke her heart, by guilt and sorrow, by everything she should have felt but hadn't.  
  
She pushed them back one last time, her jagged remnants of nails digging into her palms. She was not important now. Listening to Sonj was, holding her breath to catch those soft, dying words.  
  
"In the kitchen...there's a knife."  
  
The words sank in slowly. And Chatoya stared at her, shaking her head frantically. "I can't...no, I can't...please don't make me do that. It's not fair, *it's not fair*!"  
  
A sudden flare of strength in Sonj's words, almost anger. "You have to. You owe me that. Please. It hurts so much." She was crying now though the tears pooled uselessly around her eyes until they overflowed down her face. "I just want it to stop. Please, make it stop."  
  
She stared down at that piteous face. Yes, he had done it cleverly. He had hurt her so much, but her death would not be quick.   
  
It would not be slow.  
  
It was easy to find the knife. It was easy to kneel down by that still body. It was unspeakably painful to look into those eyes that were still aware through all of it. That was the worst of it. That she had known everything he did to her.  
  
~ You're not a killer, ~ he had told her once. She had replied she would kill if she had to. Now she had to.  
  
"Goddess take your soul," she whispered. "May you cross the Bridge of Swords safely to the other side. Wait for us there. I promise you'll see us all again."  
  
"I'll wait." Soft sigh. "Tell them...tell them I'm sorry. Tell him..." Those long eyelashes covered the dying eyes and when they lifted again, Sonj's one clear eye glittered like a falling star. A star that would burn out soon and fade into the night. "Don't tell him I love him. I don't want to hurt him."  
  
"I..." Could she do that to Rob Slivan? Pretend that for Sonj, it had all been a game. "I promise."  
  
One final question from the voice that was wavering with pain, from the girl who seemed nothing more than a child now. A child, Chatoya thought, sickened. A girl who had loved roses and romance and whose only crime had been the wrong parents.   
  
"Will it hurt?"  
  
"Not for long," she promised. "Please, if you see my parents, tell them I'll see them soon. And don't be afraid. No one will hurt you now."   
  
She remembered how it had felt when she had realised she had power over Eleanor Saxoine. Now she held someone's *life* in her hands, surely the greatest power of all. But she didn't want it.   
  
She did what she had to.  
  
She waited until she saw Sonj's soul fly from her eyes to cross the Bridge of Swords, to join the other people who waited there. Her parents, her brother. Maybe Sonj's own family. People she would never touch again in this world where she walked alone.  
  
"Goddess grant us mercy," she whispered into the warm air while the summer morning played out and the blood dawn took its sacrifice. "No one else will."  
  
She hadn't known Sonj was a friend. She hadn't known she was family. And now someone had taken her family away from her for a second time.  
  
She knew what she had to do.  
  
Another falling star in the heavens. Burn bright, burn fast because nothing lasts.  
  
****  
  
"Looking for someone?" They were halfway up the road when the voice stopped them.  
  
Lisa looked over. Blue was lying lazily on someone's wall, hands linked behind his head. "What have you done?" she hissed, remembering what it had been like to feel that horrible love of killing, to hold everything around you in contempt.  
  
"Done?" He sat up, looking amused. "My dear vampire-"  
  
"I am not your dear *anything*. I am however, your elder and better."  
  
"Well, that's not exactly difficult, is it?" the lamia boy said and yawned. "You should stop taking life so seriously. *I* certainly don't." Those endless eyes were watching their reactions with distant interest. "But if you want to help your half-breed friend, you'd best hurry. The time is running away from her."  
  
Lisa was torn. She wanted to stay and rip this boy to shreds. But Sonj was more important. His death or her life. No comparison. "I hope the demons eat your soul," she hissed, reverting to her old childhood curses.  
  
And through all the chaos that followed, through the curtains of fire and grey grief, she thought she would always hear that lovely, melodious laughter following them down the road as they ran.   
  
"Too late, my dear, too late."  
  
****  
  
Step after step through sleeting grey mists that were thick and damp.   
  
At first there was light above, a gigantic web of sparkling lights that stretched as far as she could see. Then one by one, those light snapped out, plunging her deeper and closer into darkness.   
  
Until there was one dim thread of light that lit the way. One way. She hesitated. What if it was a trap?  
  
The mists thickened around her. Why would it be a trap? She didn't even know where she was.  
  
The light flickered, beginning to fade and hastily she followed it. Behind her, the darkness closed in, chasing her.  
  
The pain drew away with every step, thudding hollowly on the stone. Several times she slipped and felt blood spring from new grazes, but she pulled herself up again and carried on walking forward. Voices called her forwards, crying out her name.  
  
And then the mists drew back and she saw the bridge.  
  
It stretched across an abyss darker than the night; as if the shadows of all time had gathered there and it moved unnaturally, rippling sometimes like an ocean and at others as if hands pushed up the darkness. Now came other sounds; dreadful, mewling wails that could come from nothing living.  
  
The bridge lay across the dark, a path of swords laid side by side with hilts interlocking and glowing with a humid sheen. The mists welled all around it and from the other side were those voices that she had missed so desperately, the people who she had so often thought she saw and it had been a mere illusion.  
  
She had to go to them.   
  
And as she set foot on that first sword, the blades cut her feet. But she bit her lip and stepped forward again, the darkness swaying below and waiting to catch her should she falter. And though the way was painful, with each step, she felt the lesions on her body heal and in her left eye, lights began to glimmer.   
  
The voices grew until she could understand the words that they were saying.  
  
They had been waiting so long for her. So many years while she stumbled through the world, lost without them and always so afraid. Always pretending.  
  
That last step and vision flooded into her left eye until she could see again. All the pain was gone and as people stepped forward, she should see the one she loved above all. She ran, across the slick stone and into her waiting arms, looking into eyes as silver as her own and a sweet, affectionate smile that would never be taken from her again.  
  
"Oh Mama," Sonj whispered, smelling the sent of roses her mother always wore. "I missed you so much."  
  
****  
  
...I know how to find you now...  
  
Chatoya didn't move from where she was kneeling, her black hair hiding her from the world like a shroud. Above her, clouds began to gather and spread across the sky, a crow's wing unfolding.  
  
...I am coming for you. And you do not even know it...  
  
Call on that magick, that beautiful crackling black fire. Twist it into a tight lethal arrow that is tuned to your target. Force the unbearable pain into power you can use.  
  
...But you will know. You will know when you see me. And you will see blood-roses before you die. Hundreds of them, blood-roses that grow from you...  
  
Fire the arrow, feel it fly through the air and widen, change until it is a shrieking black dragon bearing down on the one it hungers for. Magick, seeking and shrieking until the screaming is filling your head and you are no longer sure whether you control the magick or it controls you.  
  
The dragon pounces and in the clean black sheen of its scales, you see an image.  
  
A boy, walking.  
  
A boy, smiling. Wistful eyes like the sky being born, lean hands swathed in cloying, clinging scarlet.   
  
...and you will hear me laughing. It will be the last thing you hear...  
  
Feet swishing silently through long grass and wild green. Walking on ghost roads, walking out of the sunlight and into the shadows.   
  
...because I know now that you were right. I am just a mirror...  
  
Movements stealthy and fluid, a predator darting through the jungle. Other shadows drawing close to him, only bright eyes and glinting triangles of teeth showing. Shadows turning away from him, afraid.  
  
...but I am no ordinary mirror...  
  
His steps picking up pace, the curve of that proud mouth altering as his own teeth glint. And those eyes, big and dark and eternally blue, changing, filling with fire. Above him, thunder crashes across the sky.  
  
...because you see, you changed me. Now...  
  
Gold swelling around the rim of those fathomless pupils, growing and spreading until the blue is hidden under reams of molten honey spilling out from the hunter that surfaces within him.   
  
...I...  
  
Trees rustling agitatedly as he pushes past, hands sliding to haul that lithe body up through the tree branches, melting into the dark as if it is his own. The first drops of rain clatter on the leaves.  
  
...am...  
  
Empty space, nothing for him to pounce upon. But still that lean frame leans forward, poised.  
  
...just...  
  
He leaps, smooth and swift as an eagle swooping. Leaps at one of those shadows that slid away from him, his mouth hooking into that tiny, satisfied smile before his fangs slide out.  
  
...a broken mirror...  
  
He strikes.  
  
The dragon disappears within him and you release the spell, a faint tingling in your head leading you to him, leading you to the signature of that black magick.   
  
Chatoya stood up, following that thread of magick through the minotaur's maze of buildings and nature. Step after silent, certain step. Towards the boy with the killer's eyes.   
  
She was angry and she had a dragon's magick in her hands.  
  
From the depths of the clouds, lightning seared.  
  
Broken mirrors are *sharp*.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading - I'd love if you'd tell me what you think! 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Thank you to every wondrous one who commented last time round :-) It was very muchly delighting! Thanks to:  
  
OnKloudNyne: The whole story is up on my website. I just posted it up here because it helps make Chimera a little less mind-numbing. Thanks everso!  
  
Linnet Jo: I like 'em interesting :-) I have an alarming tendency to just stop writing if I can't keep something going about the characters that makes me want to write. Thank you muchly!  
  
Meg: Blue doesn't believe in demons :-) Mind you, I'll bet there's a few who believe in him. No, it wasn't fair Sonj had to die, but it's her own fault for being in the early story and not the later one! My thanks!  
  
Insane: I'm glad it helps with Chimera! It's not really vital but it does show a lot about Toya and Blue. Thanks everso!  
  
Comments are much loved, adored and worshipped. I hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Fifteen  
  
Chatoya walked then, into the shadows. Into her fear and her nightmare.   
  
Above, the sky was no longer blue, but storm-shot black. It was as though night had fallen early on Ryars Valley; the light grew grey and dim, the heat humming in the air despite the rain. She let her instinct guide her steps, let them take her from the paths that were illuminated with streetlights into the hidden silence of the wilderness. Into a blackness that was so complete she could see nothing.   
  
Away from the light and into the darkness. Towards the boy with the killer's eyes. Soon a killer no more.  
  
Around her, wolves howled, the song of the unnatural night floating up into the air as baneful and haunting as a lament. They saw the girl with the unkempt black hair and bare feet and passed her by. They saw the warning in her eyes, the wildness that had broken free there and found other hunting grounds.  
  
They let her walk the ghost roads, for she was already half a ghost herself.  
  
****  
  
Jepar squinted up at the sky as rain began to fall. Not the ordinary downpour of Ryars Valley, not even the monsoons they got from time to time. This was a world weeping in rage.  
  
"Come on," Lisa gasped as she pushed open the door. Although the three of them had only been outside a few seconds, their clothes were plastered to their bodies and Jepar's wet hair was dripping in his eyes.   
  
As they hurried in, all three of them shouting out Sonj and Chatoya's name in the hope of a reply, Jepar could feel a wrongness in the house. The door had been open. A picture frame was smashed on the floor. Such small things...but it was the small things that would that would chip away at you, that would break pieces away and you'd be gone before you even knew it.  
  
He knew it even before he heard Cougar Redfern half shout, half howl in anguish. And then Lisa was pelting down the stairs, her eyes panicked, tearing past him. He followed, his head feeling horribly leaden.  
  
He knew then they were too late.  
  
Not both of them, he was thinking stupidly as he followed them outside to see Cougar and Lisa leaning over by that body. Please, not Sonj and Chatoya. He can't have killed them both...body?  
  
Oh gods. His eyes took in details bit by bit, unable to comprehend the devastating entirety of the scene. The hair that was dark, dark red with the rain. The ground darkened by something. The something that spilled from the line of rubies across the throat.  
  
Not rubies, Jepar, something whispered. It wasn't rubies with Vanira and it isn't rubies now. Deal.  
  
Cougar and Lisa were kneeling, the lamia boy taking her hand and staring at her with shattering horror on his face, the gold eyes dazed and scared. Scared. Only one person Jepar knew could scare Cougar.   
  
One person had done this. One person had caused the desolation in Cougar Redfern's face, the tears that were slipping between the hands on Lisa's face, the icy numbness he himself was feeling before that stillness broke and he trying to breathe normally, trying to stop it hurting so much.   
  
He was almost hurled back into that living nightmare of Vanira's death and for a second, Sonj's face seemed to become hers. The same waxen sheen and almost - almost - peaceful expression.  
  
"Oh god," he could hear Lisa moaning softly. "Oh god, he couldn't, he couldn't."  
  
"He did," Cougar snarled and the golden light in those eyes snapped out to leave them a melancholy hazel.   
  
"He's gone for Toya now," Jepar said softly. But common sense was telling him otherwise. Blue had to have known Sonj was dead. Had Toya found her? But where had she gone? What could she do?  
  
And slowly, it slotted together when he thought of the dead, dull look in her eyes. The blank disinterest. He had thought about Gatajri then. Gata and her spells that stopped her feeling because grief had almost destroyed her like it had him. Because once the spell on Gata had broken. Once had been enough.  
  
And if...what if his sister had been stupid enough to think she could help Toya the same way?  
  
Memories clicked into place; the terrible look on Toya's face that first day. The trembling fear when they had been in the cave of being left to the darkness. The coolness in her gaze when she had sent them all away from her and Blue. The odd distance in her when she awoke. And now...the spell had broken.  
  
Oh Gatajri, he thought. How could you make the same mistake with someone else's soul?  
  
"I have to find her," Jepar said distantly. He wasn't really listening; every sense he possessed was tuned to Chatoya, searching for her mind, for a whisper of her scent, any signs of a path. The storm was making everything near impossible, weighing the air with latent energy, the water just another distraction.  
  
The storm. The storm that didn't happen at this time of year.  
  
"I think I know where she is," he said slowly. "I think she's causing this storm. But...I'm not sure."  
  
Cougar stared at him bleakly. "Sure? We weren't sure about Blue...and look what happened."  
  
"No," Lisa's firm voice said. There were the ragged traces of pain in it, but she had admirable control, only an odd quiver of her lips giving anything away. "If we're wrong, that could be far more dangerous."  
  
"What do you suggest then?" Cougar snapped angrily. He looked at the pallid hand he held in his own.   
  
Lisa took a deep breath and shut her eyes. ~ Jepar, Cougar...I need to borrow your power. You don't have the accuracy to find her, I don't have the strength. ~  
  
He acquiesced and felt the lamia agree. Anything that would help him find Toya.   
  
Lisa's mind was like a kestrel, fierce and intent and dimly, he could sense the ice-tinged gold of Cougar's mind, a frozen flame. Jepar blinked as she siphoned off his mental power and he saw the world as she did. Everything was so much clearer for her, her opinions, her needs, her expectations. The world was no lonely jungle, but an unknown road that spiralled into places she was eager to visit.   
  
And...there. In the midst of the storm ferocity, a whirlpool of power, green, crackling like a star shattering into supernova. And something else there too. A cold blue knot that felt indescribably contaminated.  
  
"I'm going to find her," Jepar announced grimly, breaking the mental contact.  
  
"I'm going with you," Cougar said in a tone that brooked no arguments. His face turned to stone with anguish that would never be expressed and he looked exactly like his younger brother. "Blue was there."  
  
That repulsive knot of energy, turning like a nest of snakes. Of course.  
  
"Okay, Lisa, you stay here and-"  
  
"No way," Lisa said, glaring at them. The dark-skinned girl moved to her feet, graceful and the huntlight gleaming frostily in those normally kind eyes. The tremble in her lips was hardening to determination.  
  
"Someone has to stay..."  
  
"For what?" the African girl said, her hand shaking as she gestured to Sonj. "She's gone. She doesn't need us now. Toya does. Gods, she needs us more than anyone else ever will."  
  
"Lise," Cougar said uncertainly. He had never seen her in this volatile mood.   
  
"Today of all days, I don't play anxious little woman. I've got more life experience than you, boys, so don't bother arguing."  
  
They didn't.  
  
****  
  
She was a witch and all nature lay subservient before her. The storm was in her hands, the rain echoed her heartbeat. In every wind she heard the whisper of her own voice, in each leaf, each root, the same growth and life that held her thoughts together.  
  
And she reached out to take it.  
  
"Where are you?" she shouted and thunder roared with her every word, swelling and dying. The wind began to lash the trees uselessly, rain streaming down her face in rivulets. Nature fought her grasp, the storm building in fury and intensity, streaking the sky with black and grey like a mourning cloak.  
  
And amidst it all, the girl with her black funereal hair and her mad green eyes glittering like marshlights. Her hands were spread wide as if she embraced the storm, wrapping it around her as a shield...or a sword.  
  
"I'm here." The voice spoke in the silence broken only by the rain's footsteps on the earth.  
  
Her head snapped round, fast and unblinking as a cobra, drawn with primal anger.  
  
"You knew I would be," he continued softly, standing in the downpour casually, rain soaking him to the skin though he didn't shiver or draw back under the scant shelter of the trees. They stood opposite each other in the clearing, the storm crackling above. He was beautiful in the gloom, shining like a blue flame.  
  
"Why?" Her voice was an eagle's scream. "Why did you kill her?"  
  
Turmoil inside as weeks of suppressed emotions broke from her grasp, the spell that had held them rent and tattered as a ripped bag. It was as if, inside her, something was bleeding away that she couldn't stop. But make it stop, oh, make it stop. Maybe hurting him will make it stop.  
  
His eyes, electric blue and unbearable, untameable, flickered. "Because I *wanted* to," he hissed.  
  
Lightning seared to strike the earth beside him. He didn't flinch.  
  
"I would do it again in an instant," he said calmly. "Just to taste her fear and hear her pathetic pleas. Do you know how she begged in the end? How she was prepared to give anything - even your life, witch girl. She would have suffered your death gladly."  
  
He was walking closer, despite the strength of the winds that tried to hurl him back. They might not have been there; the crashing of the gales blocked out as she focused only on his pitiless, unchanging eyes.   
  
And now she was afraid, she was terrified of him and that forced her fury ever higher until the power of the storm lay in her hands, until she and the earth were not two beings but one, one that lived and moved with a slow heartbeat until it was roused. And then...  
  
Gods help the one who stood in the path of the tempest.  
  
He stopped just short of her and smiled slowly, malevolence lighting his face. "I can see it," he purred, voice as soft as black velvet. "You'd love to kill me now. All you want is revenge for the way your friend died. It was slow, wasn't it? Did you have time to sing a few cheerless hymns and murmur the last rites?"   
  
"You stupid fool," she spat, hatred blazing through her as lightning cracked white across the black sky. "I didn't watch while she suffered." The cold eyes glittered with astonishment. "I killed her."  
  
He laughed. "How does it feel to be a murderer?" His smile cut like a blade. "It's good, isn't it? Watching the look in their eyes and both of you knowing that *you're* the one who controls their life."  
  
"Control?" she hissed. "Is this control enough for you?"  
  
She reached for him, murder in her eyes, and as she once had, in a world that was not fire, but ice...   
  
He stepped within her grasp and kissed her. It was a light touch, the merest brush of lips on lips, but it was enough to start a storm inside that was every bit as intense as that raging around them. And...from the myriad of images that flashed through her head in that instant, she picked out one salient fact.  
  
Those marks on her wrist.   
  
She pushed him away, shaking and horribly confused. Then she turned over her own wrists and looked at the two parallel gashes that ran from wrist to halfway up her arm. Not as shallow as she had first thought. Deep enough...deep enough to kill her maybe. If it had been her that had done this. But it hadn't been her, it had been someone else, and when she had linked their souls and minds more tightly than she had known, when she became him briefly, a copy of those marks had etched itself onto her.  
  
"You tried to kill yourself," she said with a voice that didn't seem quite her own. "Why?"  
  
Teeth bared. "Mind yours, witch."  
  
"No." It wasn't a denial, just a sound of soft wonderment. She hadn't known...there had been a time and a place when he had been vulnerable. That he wasn't as simple as he seemed. "Why?"  
  
Those eyes narrowed, cool as winter. "Nightfire. And that's all the answer you'll get." A soft laugh. "But you needn't think they forced me into anything. It was all of my own volition. That was just the price."  
  
"I don't understand," she whispered.   
  
"And?" The rain beating down distorted his face from her view. "Why should you want to?"  
  
She stared. "Because I have to know why you killed her."   
  
Oh, there was nothing that could justify it. But she had to know that there was some reason other than the love of killing. Otherwise it might drive her mad. Because where there was one...others would follow.  
  
"You *have* to know?" His voice arched derisively. "I don't think you understand me at all."  
  
"I don't." She tightened her grasp on the storm. Something very dangerous lurked in his eyes. She could see that control slip a little from him. And for a moment, she wished it was all simple again, that she could be angry and she could kill him and be done with it. "But I want to know."  
  
Reckless laugh. "Hold still then."  
  
What? She blinked and he had moved, and then there was that startling pain in her neck, and a sensation so intense and so dark it almost had a life of its own, pulsing and writhing and *yearning*...  
  
To kill.  
  
Fire shot across the sky as it seemed to tear itself in two, a line of hellfire lancing between the black  
clouds. The thunder screamed and the rain became a torrent of grey that hurt.  
  
"Don't!" Chatoya screamed, her voice sounding above the cataclysm in terrifying power. She pushed him away and it was impossible to tell whether tears mixed with the rain. "Don't *ever* touch me again!"  
  
"No!" he shouted back, the glaciers in that gaze cracking and shattering into pure gold light, burning and destructive as molten rock. "You asked me why I killed her. You wanted the truth. Well, here it is; I wanted to kill her. I kill because *I love it*. It's time people like you learned that the world isn't kind or beautiful."  
  
He caught her hands and hissed in pain as the force of the elements rocked him. For one moment, he felt all she did, for one fleeting second, he *was* the storm, screaming across barren skies with a savage freedom that held power beyond anything he had ever known, he was the girl who was being torn in two by *his* actions. He knew how it felt to be broken, battered, destroyed by compassion.  
  
Then he flung her away, breathing hard.   
  
"The world *hurts*," he snarled.  
  
She was on her knees, her face whiter than snow, the green eyes seeming huge and bewildered and filled with pain. The storm twisted, railed uselessly and fell from her grip.   
  
"Let's get one or two things straight," he said coldly. She looked up, barely seeing his form, standing tall and dark in the dim light. "I know you. I don't have much choice in that. And here's what I know, witch girl. You can't kill. You're simply not built for it. So next time you have a problem with something I do, don't come chasing after me. I've been kind this time. I won't bother next time."  
  
Next time? She was caught in a riptide and she had fought, she had let it carry her and either way, still she was dragged into darkness. And then she remembered Sonj's trembling, fluttering voice. The stars plummeting into darkness. The scrape of metal on the Bridge of Swords.  
  
She pushed herself to her feet and saw shock in that proud face. "There will be no next time," she told him and felt the storm surge under her hold as she reached out with magick.  
  
He laughed coldly. "Do you honestly think you can stop me?"   
  
She raised an eyebrow and lightning spilt above his head to strike either side of him. The smell of burning earth drifted upwards. "Do you honestly want me to answer that?"  
  
"Go on then," Blue murmured in his cruel voice, eyes giving nothing away. "Kill me. I won't stop you."  
  
"No."  
  
"What?" Mocking. As if he had expected this. "The fair maiden doesn't find the sacrifice to her taste?"  
  
"The fair maiden would like the sacrifice to burn in hell," she answered. "But first she wants him to regret what he did. And if she kills him now, that won't happen."  
  
"What do you think you can do? What do you think you are without your magick and your pretty powers?"  
  
"More than you will ever be," she said coldly. "All you have is killing and nothing will ever change that."  
  
"You're wrong," he said mildly. His calm took her breath away and spiralled her anger to new heights. "You seem determined to cast me as the archetypical villain in this quaint drama. But I'm not."  
  
"Please," she spat, "tell me about your traumatic childhood. About how cruelly you were treated, about your devastating problems. Try to justify yourself."  
  
"Who said anything about justice?" He shrugged. "Oh, I kill and I love it. It's my calling. But please, don't presume to lecture me on personality flaws. At least I can *cope* with my emotions."   
  
"You have no emotions."  
  
"Wrong again, witch of mine." He laughed as she flinched away from the endearment. "You're easy to hurt. And I can hurt you, make no mistake. But it would be easy. And easy is boring. So I'll kill you instead and maybe you'll be a little more interesting that way."  
  
He stepped towards her and Chatoya stepped back. "How about this?" she said. "I won't kill you; we both know that. But do you ever think you'll be able to kill *me*? I can make your life hell. There are spells that can link our minds constantly...do you think you can cope with hearing my every thought, my every feeling? Do you think you can listen to me going slowly insane because of you and not be affected?"  
  
He stopped. "Well," he said quietly. "It seems you *do* know how to threaten."   
  
The rain had to be chilling him to the bone, but he simply watched her with that impassive, callous stare.   
  
"It's fortunate for you that I'm leaving. I've had enough of this revolting town. And frankly, I've had enough of you and your amazingly naïve ideals. I've satisfied my contract; all who can wake dragons are dead. Your friend was just...a bonus." Cruel, tiny smile. "But here's a threat for *you*, Chatoya Irkil."  
  
She stared at him, and something in her had the sense to be afraid.   
  
"I hold vendettas," he murmured. "For now, there are other jobs, other contracts. But when I have time...I'll pay you a visit. Maybe you'll have grown up enough to be of some use. Until then..." Those icy eyes flashed with something like laughter. "Don't die on me."  
  
And then he caught her head in her hands before she could move and smashed power through her defences, through her pitiful mental shields and into her head until the pain was more than she could bear.   
  
Just when she thought it would kill her, he let go. But left one last final image wrenching in her head.  
  
An image of the half-breed with sleek red hair fighting and dying, inch by inch, choking and writhing and suffering. It played over and over again, the screams ringing clearly through her head, the rivers of red, the pain and the horror and the death that she couldn't bear.   
  
Over and over and over and she couldn't stop it.  
  
She couldn't stop it.  
  
She screamed with the unfairness of it, with the pain of it. Everywhere she looked, blood-roses seemed to sprout and leap with fanged stems. Ghosts of that ripped voice echoing everywhere...everywhere...  
  
He turned around and laughed. "By the way...your parents? I burned them."  
  
She screamed in anger and the storm screamed with her, leaping up like a tornado unleashed. But he was gone. The storm raged on and in her head, Sonj Jameson died a thousand times over. Something in her was lost then, running through darkness. She lost control. She lost herself.  
  
And three people fighting through the tempest, almost unnoticed, were moving closer.   
  
They didn't stand a chance.  
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading :-) Love to know what you think! 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

A huge thank you to everyone who commented last time :-) It was very very much appreciated! Thank you to:  
  
Kitty Katt: Thanks :-) Fifteen was one of my favourites to write. It just worked between Toya and Blue.  
  
Baloo: A lot of it is told in Chimera - but it's not, in a way. You get the story but it doesn't mean much without the detail (I always find I pick up a book that's the middle of the series then am compelled to go get the early ones too.) I'm totally delighted that you liked it :-) I can understand why you wouldn't want to read it, knowing the ending sometimes does spoil stuff. Thanks!  
  
Meg: Blue believes in justice for other people -not for himself. And it's *his* sort of justice :-) He does deserve a good kicking, doesn't he? Thanks :-)  
  
Gemma: Heya, I'm glad you like the story - sorry it took a while to update but I hope you enjoy! Cheers :-)  
  
Orange: Nope, very much unfinished (but only 3 more parts to go!) Thanks for the encouragement :-)  
  
Comments would be adored - I hope you like!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Sixteen  
  
"Bloody hell," Cougar shouted above the black drumroll of the storm. "This isn't a storm, it's the goddamn oceans taking flight."  
  
"There is *nothing* bloody about this," Lisa said shivering. "Is it me or this getting worse?"  
  
"She couldn't have made it *easy*, could she?" Cougar persisted, oblivious to anything bar his problems.   
  
No, that was being unfair, Jepar thought. Cougar was just trying not to think about Sonj. Failing miserably from the wretched look in the vampire's hazel eyes.  
  
"No, she had to go and wreak havoc in the middle of a forest. And she has to be an all-powerful witch - and when did *that* happen, incidentally? I didn't see any superhuman powers snapping into existence until today - who has the emotional stability of a lemming on stilts taking a clifftop walk. Christ!"  
  
"Don't swear," Lisa told him calmly. She seemed to have recovered her poise, though those coffee-dark eyes were steaming.   
  
The vampire scowled, brushing rivulets of water away uselessly. "Since when have you been a Christian?"  
  
"I'm not. But I happen to believe I should respect other people's ideals in case they turn out to be right."  
  
"Ya-huh." The lamia kicked a branch aside with such force it splintered. "Save me the cute morals for that moment when I actually *feel* the need to die laughing." He flinched as he realised what he had said.  
  
"Shut up, guys," Jepar said tersely. He could *sense* Chatoya now. Not only with his mind, but somehow he could feel she was nearby. And she was hurting. "Let's go a bit quicker, huh?"  
  
He started as thunder cracked and felt Lisa grab hold of him as she nearly tripped. "What's going *on*, Jep? Cougar's right, Chatoya shouldn't have this sort of power. This is Night Wars magick."  
  
"Not a clue," he said grimly. "Well...not much of one."  
  
"Whoa!" Jepar found himself suddenly slamming to a halt as someone grabbed him with unmistakable strength. "What do you *mean* not much?" Cougar's eyes had the faintest glitter of gold in their depths.  
  
"It's just...look, I don't *know* anything - I'm only guessing."  
  
"What aren't you telling us, Jep?" Lisa joined in, her hair a flat cap against her head "Why?"  
  
He teetered over telling them. But it was obvious they would wait for the Apocalypse if needs be.  
  
"Look, my sister has this neat trick where she stops all her emotions completely with magick. Only problem is, sometimes it doesn't work and all the emotion she's been ignoring for however-long-it-is hits her in the face. Last time three people died, Chatoya's been acting the same way, I think the spell's broken, we're wasting time and I *really* don't want to talk about this."  
  
He broke away and quickly began to force his way through the maze of trees. The roaring winds made it even more difficult, sometimes throwing him back two steps for every one he took.  
  
Cougar and Lisa exchanged horrified glances. Then Cougar sighed and morosely elbowed the vegetation out of his way. "He's our friend," the vampire said gloomily. "Even if he is a suicidal bastard."   
  
****  
  
The storm was in her bloodstream now. She had long lost track of where she and her magick began and where the merciless fires of Nature began.  
  
Her body barely existed for her. It was little more than a restricting shell, nothing when there was *this*.  
  
To blaze across the sky in a trail of pure energy, to shout with a voice that could be heard miles away, to fly in twists of air that could tear humanity from its foundations. It was so good, so glorious, it made it so easy to forget that scene that replayed over and over if she let it.  
  
Somewhere, somewhen, she knew her body was soaked to the bone by the torrents of rain that her magick danced and leapt in delightedly. Somewhere, somewhen, she knew that time and place existed and that there were other things that mattered too.  
  
There was that thing she didn't want to know about. The scene with the red-haired girl who twisted and screamed and collapsed into a little pool of redness, of blood-roses.   
  
As she shrieked across the valley skies, the elements she was lightly brushed across plants that would be blood-roses, dozens of them planted with another tender care. She took a handful of air and twisting it, uprooted every plant and flung them into the air.  
  
She paused, and flowing into a knot of lightning, charred them into tiny, floating wisps.   
  
It was easy. It was fun. It helped stop remembering.  
  
And she saw other movement as she floated over the wood. It was a low-slung, slinking shape that moved with lithe motion. She fell with the rain, drawing close so she could see its honed canines and bright eyes.  
  
And it was in *her* place. It was slinking towards that thing, that body that had been hers and hunger rolled out from its throat in a low growl.  
  
She saw its muscles tense...beautiful, fluid rippling under its body.  
  
It sprang.  
  
She caught the wolf in mid-spring, hurling herself into the sweet white heat of lightning and crackling through it, feeling death catch hold of it like an iron claw.   
  
And oh, it was good.  
  
In that one fiery moment when its soul flew its body, she forgot everything, even who she was. There was no pain. There was no hurt; it was as it had once been for her, before the storm and the boy. Just that blissful peace, that velvet void.  
  
She wanted more.  
  
Just a little more. Just another moment of peace. The storm wasn't enough...it would never be quite enough because she still had to be herself within it; she still had to be Chatoya Irkil.  
  
But to kill? To bring death? She could be anything she wanted.  
  
She slithered into a tendril of air and dragged her essence along the current, searching for something else, anything else alive. Anything that wasn't shut in its shelter, away from her reach. There must be yet more easy...easy...what was it? Easy...  
  
Prey.  
  
****  
  
Jepar was extremely surprised when ten-plus stone of furious lamia rugby-tackled him.   
  
He hit the ground silently but painfully, the breath knocked out of him for a minute. He turn to yell at Cougar (it had to be him - no one else combined such gleeful violence with vicious accuracy in nearly breaking his kneecaps) and was startled to see the vampire crouching in the shadow of a tree that held no more shelter than the open ground.  
  
He was even more surprised when Lisa clapped a hand over his mouth and put a blunt finger to her lips. Then she pointed into the gloom and Jepar caught his breath.  
  
It had only been a glimpse, a glimpse of a blue-haired boy striding confidently away from the snarling nexus of the storm. But it had been enough.  
  
~ What now? ~ Even Lisa's coffee-rich mental voice was a whisper and in it, he could feel the delicate chime of her grief.   
  
~ I'm not missing this chance, ~ the dark tones of Cougar hissed. ~ I owe him a debt. Son-of-a-bitch won't get away with what he's done anymore. I'm going to prove to him that blood is quicker than water. ~  
  
~ Agreed. ~ Jepar glanced at their faces. They were distracted. Good. He might be able to persuade them. ~ But I need to find Toya. We'll have to split up. ~  
  
Lisa's eyebrows arched, making her blink as more rain dripped into her eyes.  
  
~ First rule of horror movies, ~ the girl murmured. ~ Never split up. We know Toya's alive, she's okay... ~  
  
~ This is *not* okay! ~ Jepar said as loudly as he dared. Blue was getting further from them with every step, but from what he knew, this guy was sharp and brutal. ~ Alive and okay are not synonymous. ~  
  
~ It's still a bad idea. ~  
  
~ Guys, Blue is *getting away*, ~ an agitated Cougar said, shifting anxiously in his niche, his hair soaked and gale-whipped. ~ No time for this! ~  
  
~ Oh... ~ Lisa's face was hunted. ~ *All right.* Who goes where? ~  
  
~ Cougar, you take on Blue. He's dangerous. ~  
  
~ No shit, Sherlock! ~   
  
Jepar gave the lamia boy a single withering glance for that, emerald eyes filling with green and red lights in the gloom. ~ I'll find Toya. I'm...the best one to talk to her. ~  
  
~ Huh? ~ Lisa looked baffled. ~ No. I'll go with you. If she is causing this...she might be dangerous. ~  
  
Jepar shook his head. He was scared. More scared than he could have ever imagined. ~ No, ~ he said softly. ~ I'm the only one she'll listen to. ~  
  
Two pairs of eyes trained on him, so intense he felt an absurd urge to shield his face or look away. "Why?" Cougar said, his face drawn with strain. Blue was far enough away for them to talk now. "Why you?"  
  
He did look away then, not wanting to see their reactions. "Because I can understand. I know how easy it is just to let go and forget everything good the world's ever given you. It's so easy to stop caring and..."   
  
He was drowning under the weight of his memories for one awful moment, seeing Vanira's face, that soft smile curling up her face. How he had reached out, shaken her, felt the warmth still hiding in her creamy skin, smooth under his touch and how locks of her thick brown hair had fallen onto his hand but she still hadn't moved. Still. Everything about Vanira had been still.  
  
And then he had realised that Vanira, his Vanira was dead.  
  
He had forgotten everything then. Forgotten who he was for a while, forgotten the people he cared about, forgotten everything except the anger and the grief.  
  
"...and it's easy to start killing," he said bleakly.   
  
Lisa was breathing very quickly. He could see the way her eyes widened and she kept her lips pressed together. Cougar was stood absolutely motionless, the only still thing in the writhing storm.   
  
"You'd best go then," the vampire girl said tightly. "And...I hope for your sake she does listen."  
  
I don't think she will, Jepar thought silently. I think I'm fighting a battle I'm going to lose but I have to try.  
  
I can't give up on her. She's too much to me now.  
  
****  
  
Easily done.  
  
Very easily done.  
  
Blue Malefici could still see the stark, shocked pain in the face of the witch. He played it over and over in his head, relishing that moment.  
  
I thought you would be a little harder to crack. You are, after all, my soulmate. My reflection. But now...I don't think there will be much of you left when morning comes.  
  
Pity. I like a good fight. Maybe in a few years, you would have been worth my attention.  
  
He didn't mind the storm now. It had been cold, not to mention irritating at first, but now, now he understood what was causing it and what was becoming lost in it, it was almost a pleasure. He loved the feel of it, like cold silk sliding over his skin, the winds like a thousands reaching hands and a thousand screaming voices, trying to plead with him, hold him, beg him, enfold him.  
  
Nothing would ever ensnare him.  
  
He was free.  
  
That was what no one understood; that there were no rules that could bind him, no words that could quell him. The world was lying at his feet, waiting for him to walk all over it. And how could he resist such a tender gift?  
  
And he loved the cruel irony of it; the storm she had thought to destroy him with was razing her from the inside out. An elemental knife cutting into her heart until her lifeblood spilled away.  
  
Briefly, he turned his thoughts to the people following him. He could hear them crashing through the undergrowth, a tiny note of wrongness under the screaming of the storm.   
  
Come into my parlour...  
  
If he concentrated, if he sent his mind flicking lazily over the area like a boomerang, the gold-ice of frozen fire glittered in his senses and close by, the soft-almond of another vampire hovered there.   
  
...said the spider to the fly...  
  
His pace picked up, vaulting lightly over logs and moving through the path of thorns like an eel in water. A flash of blue eyes rimmed with gold as he glanced to the dark canopy above. Behind him, he heard those minds chasing frantically.  
  
...come into my parlour, friend...  
  
Into the small shelter of a deciduous tree, hands swinging him easily up through the branches until he was hidden in the foliage, dampening his thoughts so they couldn't sense him.  
  
...and let me watch you die.  
  
****  
  
Jepar's feet took him along the ghost roads he knew so well. He had hunted here days ago; it seemed like eternity. Before Chatoya had come and his world had been thrown into a place of chaos and horror.   
  
He was drenched and shivering within seconds, the rain beyond torrential, beyond the force of the monsoon. Hail rattled around in chunks the size of his fist that sliced his skin open. Remaining in the debatable shelter of the trees kept the worst off him, but with every step, Jepar was less certain that Chatoya Irkil would listen to him.  
  
Rain washed away the blood that was pouring out of his cuts but the fall was getting thicker and faster. And Jepar knew he was getting nearer. Every sense he owned was telling him to turn back, to run and keep running until he was far away from this chillingly inhuman witch who could bring Nature to its knees.  
  
Every sense except the one which remembered the person he knew.   
  
There was a horrible ripping sound and he looked up to see a dark blur plummeting towards him.   
  
He leapt sideways, hitting the ground so hard his teeth jolted and one wrist broke in a softer echo.   
  
A tree had crashed down across the path. Just that one. Every other in the forest stood strong, though they bent and danced in the windstorm.  
  
"This isn't funny anymore," he muttered through gritted teeth as he got up.   
  
Not that it had ever been funny. Chatoya Irkil, with her soft, shy eyes and her dark secrets was no laughing matter. She was a mystery, sometimes so fragile that he was afraid she might snap in his grip, and sometimes so terrible, so powerful that the world she walked on seemed to flex to suit her.   
  
But whatever she was, she gave her soul to the moment. Maybe that was why he loved her. Maybe that was why she was slipping away from him now. Instead of the steady whirlpool of her mind, he could now feel the faint moss-green-shadows of her touch all around him.   
  
So faint it was a mere shimmer on the zenith of his senses.  
  
Jepar kept on in the direction where than node of magick had been, every sense alert. He was just another shadow sliding through the gloom, the rain turning him into a blur of gold and dark. Except for those fiery eyes, which gleamed like the northern lights, the only colour in a storm.  
  
A little ripple of sound in front of him, a little collection of shadows that pooled and wriggled into the forms of drenched, sullen wolves. Blocking the way.  
  
Jepar looked at these unlikely trolls. Did they understand what was happening? "Let me pass."  
  
"No way through to wolf-killer," a rough, female voice growled. The new Pack leader, Donna Ares, with her snaking red hair and striking eyes crept forward, human, her skin puckered in gooseflesh. Her Pack snuggled around her, warming her. "You want not to go that way, hunt-brother."  
  
Wolf-killer? Someone had killed the Pack? And they *weren't* hunting them down...Blue. It had to be.  
  
"There's no wolf-killer that way. Just a girl. Just a frightened girl."  
  
"Wolf-killer that way." She stabbed a finger at him. "Only wolf-killer. No girl, unless wolf-killer is girl."  
  
"Let me by, Pack-leader," Jepar ordered, letting the old arrogance of a highly-placed shapeshifter drift into his voice. Wolves understood tone. Sometimes words weren't enough. "Your wolf-killer has hurt the girl."  
  
Donna eyed him carefully. Still more animal than human in her. "Your risk, hunt-brother. But Pack *knows* only wolf-killer waits down dark trails." The wolves yipped in agreement, but parted, shadows slinking away to let him by.  
  
He was out of their sight, driving through the heavy curtains of rain before he heard that soft half-growl.  
  
"Be careful, hunt-brother." Donna following him. "She's dangerous. Our wolf-killer has teeth."  
  
He blinked; she was suddenly coherent. "What do you care?"   
  
It was a fact he and the Pack didn't get on; Donna had only become leader over the past few days (Jepar had heard the news on the howl when he went hunting). Rarely, the Pack of Ryars Valley had become matriarchal; the last leader had been female and Jepar had broken her shoulder three weeks back.  
  
"You're a shapeshifter. So am I, hunt-brother. But more importantly, you weakened Archani. Why do think I won the leadership fight? I owe you." Her heart-shaped face was solemn. "So listen to me, hunt-brother; your wolf-killer and your girl are the same. It was the lightning that killed Tsanus. And if your girl is the witch that the hunt-howl says she is, then it was her."  
  
In her words, the message was clear. You're beyond your depth. Get out now; as one hunter to another. There are times to run. There are times to fight. But we are hunters and we cannot control the elements we hunt within. When the elements are against you...it's time to run.  
  
He hadn't realised Chatoya would try to kill him.   
  
If she even knew it was him.  
  
If she even knew it was her.  
  
Donna could see the thoughts flickering across his face; there was very little guile about this cheetah-boy, she decided. He was...and innocent. A fool. A romantic. Somehow apart from the shapeshifter races. Like her. She led the Pack; but they were not hers. Same race; different face.  
  
And the innocent just laughed at her. He laughed in the midst of the storm. And said so gently; "Donna, I know."  
  
He turned away, that gold hair turned dark bronze in the gloom, and walked the dark path.  
  
Donna sighed. "Good luck, hunt-brother," she said.   
  
You'll need it.  
  
****  
  
Thank you for reading! Comments loved, loved, loved! 


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Ack, my apologies for the length of time for this update! Due to this, I'm putting up the next two parts :o) After that, therte's just the epilogue left, I hope you enjoy - and if you're still out hter,e reading, wow, and thank you! My thanks to the stars and suns of you who reviewed last time round, thank you to:  
  
OnKloudNyne: Yup, this one is up on the website. Most of the stories are, except that Chimera's only up to Chapter 23. I'm psyched you like :o) Thanks muchly!  
  
Magelet: ::grins:: Short and muchly sweet - thank you!  
  
Kittykatt: Jepar is sweet that way (and, people tell me, stupid.) I'm glad you liked it - and just sorry it took this long to update, ack! Merci beaucoup!  
  
Spellcial: Donna is a sideline character who's started to creep in on the stories :o) I enjoed wirting that part, because I got to write characters I don't too often. Thanks everso!  
  
Perid: I am humbly sorry this update took so long ::grimace:: Not intended. It is finished :o) And up now, too! (Finally). I'm happy you like Chimera too, thanks for telling me! Chimera is a work in progress, but it's due to be finished within six weeks or so, and I guess Shimmer is finished now! Thanks for the compliments - and don't thank me, thank you for letting me know you like the stories!  
  
Comments are utterly adored, pored over, acclaimed, framed, revered, cheered and occasionally feared. Please tell me what you think - I love hearing!   
  
I hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Seventeen  
  
Walking the dark road...  
  
Lightning searing up ahead, over and over and over until the earth could be nothing but a charred mass. The anger of someone who was barely alive, barely dead. Standing with one foot either side of the abyss and always, always the shadows waiting to catch them if they slipped.  
  
You won't slip. You can't slip. I won't let you.  
  
But as Jepar reached the clearing, the eye of the storm, as he saw what lay at its edge, he understood the power Chatoya Irkil had harnessed.  
  
It looked like an ebony statue; black and shiny and almost perfectly carven. Its limbs outstretched in a display of sleek, predatory power, a sheen of black across those strained muscles. Agape, its jaws were perfectly formed and pointed like a ring of daggers, a dark Stonehenge to the sky.  
  
And where that scorched wolf touched the ground, that smooth black surface had crumpled into acres of ash, ashes that swirled in the wind like a swarm of butterflies.  
  
Oh god. He hadn't known she was capable of that. Fundamentally, he had thought it would be his Chatoya, the gentle, reasonable one. Not the fierce one. Not the cold one.  
  
He stared at the wolf. It had tried to attack her. It had given her no warning. What if....But what if was a precarious sentiment to cling to.   
  
What if has changed the world.  
  
****  
  
Cougar and Lisa ducked through the woods, tracking his brother. Blue's pace had suddenly picked up, moving like a hunting leopard, and they had lost sight of him.  
  
~ Where can he have gone? ~ Lisa gasped, looking around anxiously.   
  
A light, melodious laugh. And then Blue's amused, controlled voice flowed into their heads.  
  
~ Why don't we play a guessing game? ~  
  
The branches above them shook and both of them moved away. Then the sound was all around them as wind howled through the wood. And Cougar couldn't tell where his brother was, though he would swear he saw a blur of dark motion in the corners of his eyes every time he turned.  
  
Left. A gleam of blue like light running over a dewy leaf.  
  
~ How about over here, brother? ~  
  
Right. The electric flare of eyes that were fiercely eerie, a pulsar in the dimness before they winked out.  
  
~ Or here? ~ That musical laugh. ~ Find the shadow in the shadows... ~  
  
Round and round and round he spun, trying to find that softly mocking voice.  
  
~ Then again...that's so dull. ~   
  
The wave of mental power was phenomenal.   
  
Cougar feeling his head snap back hard with the pain, clutching at a branch to keep his balance as spots danced briefly in front of his eyes.  
  
~ Lise? ~ he said painfully. His head ached and pounded like the sea breaking against cliffs. It hurt even to turn and see the African girl lying on the ground, one hand curled in a fist.   
  
"I can't believe you're still standing," that voice said mildly. "I'm impressed. Almost."  
  
If he blinked again, and again, there was the slight figure of his younger brother, sitting on a branch and swinging one leg idly. The eyes that matched the moon's corona were glowing softly in the gloom, sending sparks bouncing from raindrop to raindrop in glitteringly miniscule fractured rainbows.  
  
"Shame about your friend." Blue dropped to the ground and tilted his head, looking at Lisa. "Pretty thing. But she's a vampire. Beauty without strength is very little. Whereas strength without beauty..." He shook his head. "Your witch may not have much beauty, but for a moment there, I thought I might have to fight."  
  
Cougar stared. The pain had ebbed, enough for him to move charily. "You met her? And she's still alive?"  
  
"Unavoidable." A shrug. "There's more to that one than meets the eye. And the mouth."  
  
Cougar began to size up his surroundings. There was no chance of him living if he didn't think of something and think of it fast. "I hope her blood poisoned you."  
  
"Someone's bitter." Blue didn't seem to be bothered at all by the rain, ignoring chunks of hail that rattled around him and seldom sliced a short-lived cut on his skin. "And very nearly accurate with the insults."  
  
Whatever his little brother was rambling about, it was making even less sense than usual. But it was stopping him from starting his usual variation on amateur surgery, so Cougar could only be thankful. In as much as he had anything to be thankful about. Stuck in the middle of the storm in a wood...  
  
Wood. Even Blue was vulnerable to a good ol' fashioned stake in the heart, though Cougar could think of one or two places where it would do more good.  
  
"Did you know there's a dragon winging its wicked way here?" Blue inquired lazily.  
  
"What?" The black-haired lamia stared. But they don't exist, he thought hazily. I know Chatoya and Ghost-Boy *thought* they woke a dragon, but they're legends, jokes. Tales to frighten gullible kids.   
  
"Just thought I'd warn you." Blue's teeth gleamed luminously. "I'd stay and watch the fun but...well, places to go, people to see. Horrible deaths to cause."  
  
"You're...just going to leave?"  
  
The look he got was withering. "Let me point out a few salient facts: I'm in the middle of a storm. I'm in a place where almost everyone I've met seems to have this bizarre obsession with killing me, and as a rule I can't help but feel obliged to return the favour - only this witch girl will kill anyone who makes a hostile move within about two miles of her."  
  
"When has that ever stopped you?" Cougar demanded.  
  
Blue gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I'd prefer not to be spread across the landscape in a sad little crater." Above, thunder roared as if confirming his words. "I'm cruel. I'm not stupid."  
  
No. That much was true. Cougar had always suspected his little brother had far too much intelligence and far too little care. And the worst thing was that he had power too.   
  
"Why did you kill Sonj?" Cougar asked softly. Shadows and firelight danced in his eyes and for a moment, the look on his face was so close to Blue's an observer would have been tested to tell them apart.  
  
"The half-breed?" Blue laughed. "There's your answer."  
  
"Because of her *blood*?"   
  
Rage. Rage welling up like white lightning, cold and hot at the same time. It obliterated the pain in one swift swoop, sending energy raging through his bloodstream. Because of her *blood*. His brother, who was a half-blood himself, had killed Sonj because of her *blood*.  
  
Just like he killed Ruby...killed her with his treachery, with his serpentine mind and calm cruelty. Always killing, death after death after death until one headstone blurred into another, until it was just another rose, another ghost of blood thrown onto the grave's void. Blood into darkness, time after time.  
  
"Well, it wasn't for her money."  
  
Around them the storm twisted. Blue looked up, as if he was listening. A faint smile crossed his face.   
  
And Cougar *moved*.  
  
Snapping a branch with one hand, ignoring the splinters that shot into his hand, running at full speed and slamming the stake forward like a sword.  
  
Lightning seared down, so close its heat burned along his back, though the energy didn't touch him.   
  
And Blue caught the stake. But suddenly Lisa was up, snapping her own makeshift stake with only a faint moan of pain escaping her, soft as the sigh of a butterfly's wing.   
  
"I wouldn't recommend that," Blue said archly, eyes laughing. "Unless you want your witch girl to die."  
  
"What?" Lisa stopped, her teeth bared in a beautiful, feral expression. Her hands were tensed on the wood.  
  
Cougar was startled when Blue threw him and the stake. He landed on the rain-softened ground, some ten feet away but leapt to his feet, gold eyes glittering like sunlight through honey.   
  
That small, satisfied smile. "If I die, so does she. You see...you seem to have misjudged the pair of us."  
  
"What do you mean?" Cougar said guardedly. Was Blue controlling Chatoya?  
  
That calm, even amused, voice saying words that sank like iron. "Your lovely witch is my soulmate."  
  
His what? What was a soulmate?  
  
Whatever it was, it had made Lisa's eyes widen and her nerveless hands drop the stake. "No."  
  
It was another myth sprung to life, he recalled. The concept of two people whose souls were foils of each other, the people on either side of mirror, the yin and yang, two harmonies that together made a song.  
  
"No, no, no," the tribal girl said, shaking her head so the beads woven into her hair clicked crazily. "They don't exist anymore. You and her...never."  
  
That tiger's tail of a smile widening and deepening, his eyes mimicking it until they seemed to glow an ethereal blue, that of the impossible dawn. "Why do you think she's still alive?"  
  
If it was true.... His brother, not a person but a creature, unchanged by time or death or love, forced into someone else's soul. Gods, how he must have hated it, have fought it in the only way he knew.   
  
But he couldn't kill Chatoya Irkil. And Chatoya Irkil could never kill him.  
  
"Get out," the African girl hissed. "Get out and never come back."  
  
Blue hiked up one eyebrow, bowed to her. "My dear vampire, I will be gone long before the dragon ever reaches your home. But I have unfinished business here. And it's you. All of you."  
  
The rain poured down and none of them moved.  
  
"She's kept a part of me."   
  
Cougar could see the image in Blue's thoughts, of a green-eyed girl with mourning-black hair and madness shrieking in her every word. A girl lost in a storm, dying not in sweet softness, but in fury and fire.  
  
"After all...mirrors steal your soul."  
  
That black-wreathed head thrown back, lightning blazing white trails beside her. The storm crashing, wrapping its power around her outstretched hands, arching like a dancer's but with far darker purpose.  
  
"Even broken mirrors."  
  
And a boy with eyes as still as liquid emeralds. Stepping forwards fearlessly, tilting his head up proudly.   
  
"One day, I'll want my soul back."  
  
The image disappeared like a gate dropping shut and there was only Blue looking at them with those eyes that stretched into cobalt infinity, predatory and filled with that long forgotten love of killing.  
  
"Not today. But someday."  
  
He turned and walked away. And understanding the power he held over them, the power he held over Chatoya, neither risked stopping him.  
  
"Someday may be sooner than you think."  
  
He slid silently into the storm.  
  
****  
  
Oh, oh, oh.  
  
Joy and madness this, to rage in this storm, to glory in the energy. To feel the wrenching pain taken away as she scorched the earth, as she watched the pathetic things below her running away from her power.   
  
Run...run. Let me hunt you, let me chase you, let me show you what I am.  
  
She played with them. Sending little darts of lightning past, never touching them but watching as they exerted every last breath to escape. And just as she thought she might tire of this game, she heard a voice.  
  
~ Chatoya? ~  
  
It was a beautiful voice, thrumming like a mellow guitar but with subtle, powerful storm harmonies winding beneath it. It brought to mind days of steaming sunlight, of endless green fields and then...  
  
The other thing. The girl, the one with the hair of spun blood screaming and crumpling.  
  
~ No! ~ she shouted back with everything she was. Hail clattered as she threw it as this one who made her hurt and feel that terrible pain again. ~ Not anymore! ~  
  
~ You don't belong here, ~ the voice said. ~ You know it. Please...won't you talk to me? All you have to do is talk to me and then...I'll go if you want. ~ Every nuance said unless she obeyed, the voice would remain. The voice had eternity beside it, eternity that would outlast storm-power and defiance.  
  
~ Talk. ~ Say your words and then go away. Leave me to this. Words are too complicated. Lightning is clean and clear. Give me the lightning; leave the words for the people who need them.  
  
~ No. Not here. Down there. ~ He meant the earth. Back in that place of wilderness and pain.   
  
~ Here. ~   
  
~ What are you so afraid of? ~ And the voice had changed suddenly. It was imitating someone, imitating them so cleverly that for a moment she was sure that it *was* that cruel, cold boy. ~ Me, my witch girl? ~  
  
~ I will never fear you! ~ she screamed angrily, and launched herself out from the storm.  
  
****  
  
Jepar watched as her body, lying limp on the ground, drew up suddenly. The eyes were shut, her eyelashes stark black grins on her face. She was so pale...surely no one could be that white and live; her skin had the luminous, impossible shade of the moon and she seemed every bit as distant and painfully lovely.  
  
Her eyes flew open.  
  
They were like whirlpools, drawing him in. That dark, murky green that promised secrets, that held pain beyond mere grief.   
  
"What do you want?" she said. In her voice, Jepar could hear the thunder, the crack of splintering earth.  
  
You.   
  
****  
  
She stared at this strange boy who dared walk before her. To one side, there was that charred mass, that thing that had tried to destroy her.   
  
It hurt so much here.  
  
That scene, replaying itself. One little pool of redness, of madness, one life cut short by an unfair knife.   
  
"You," he said calmly. "We want you to come back."  
  
"No," she said. "I can't come back now. It's gone too far. It was so easy to start...but I can't stop now. It's gone too far. It's gone too far."  
  
The boy shook his golden head. She had known who he was once. But hadn't those emerald eyes always been laughing, always been tender when they looked at her? Now they were fierce and hurting.   
  
"Too far? When you can't see how far it is, then it's gone too far. Please, Toya. Please come back."  
  
Jepar. That was it. Jepar Jubatus with his sunny smile and tingling touch. Who evoked that odd pain inside her because she saw the change in him and hated herself for it. Because this was her fault, it had to be her fault. She wasn't quick enough, she wasn't powerful enough, she hadn't *cared* enough.  
  
"No..." She stepped back from him unconsciously.   
  
He took a step forward, despite the hailstones she hurled at him in frantic defence. "I know what Gata did, and she should never have used that spell on you. Never." Cuts riddled his skin; he didn't retreat.  
  
"Why does it hurt so much?" she half-screamed at him. "It shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't hurt."  
  
"It has to hurt," Jepar told her, closing his eyes against the face of the girl who he had killed for. Vanira was gone. He had lost her long ago and he wouldn't lose Chatoya. "If it didn't hurt, we wouldn't be people. We'd be like Blue."   
  
"Anything would be better than this!"  
  
"No!" he said fiercely. "Maybe it hurts now, and it will always hurt. I promise you, there will be nights when you'll wake up calling out their name, hearing their voice, nights when no one will hear you crying and when all you want is to take a knife and stop it hurting because anything is better than feeling your soul being ripped away piece by piece. But you'll realise that you can't do that because then there will be no one left to remember them. And if you do that, then they'll be dead. And so will you."  
  
"I just want it to stop hurting!" she moaned as lightning raked the trees around them in quicksilver swipes.   
  
"So did I!" Jepar said angrily. He couldn't stop remembering now, Vanira filling his head with her wild laugh, her long, long throat and the rubies arcing across it... "It doesn't...it never stops. But I learned to live with it. And so will you. It just takes time, Chatoya, and that was what you weren't given. Time."  
  
"No!" She shook her head wildly and her mourning black hair wriggled like snakes, framing her face. "I can't bear it! Leave me alone."  
  
"Why?" He gestured to the chaos around them. "So you can be this? So you can live what's left of your life in a lie? So you can make me feel the way you feel now?"  
  
Her breath caught and those eyes flared brightly with pain.  
  
"You would, you know," he said gently, seeing that he had touched a nerve. "You're part of me now, you're part of my memories and you're part of my heart and if you die, I don't know who I'd be."  
  
"Don't make it difficult." Her voice was despairing. And in her eyes, he could see the girl he knew. The one who was unsure and emotional. The one who lived for the moment.   
  
"I can't make it easy," he told her. "I can't just let you go."  
  
Pain, pain in that face that grown so pale, so inhuman, so lonely. "Then I'll make it easy for you."  
  
He blinked.  
  
And Vanira was there. Dear gods, Vanira. Her dancer's body poised as if she was going to leap through the air, her hands stretching to the stars as she had loved to do. Her arms arched above her head and her head thrown back to show that graceful neck.  
  
And that line of rubies, that line of spilling blood. Vanira.   
  
****  
  
Thanks for reading! Comments would be loved, loved, loved! 


	18. Chapter Eighteen

This is the final part, bar the epilogue, if you'd lie that posted. :o) I hope you've enjoyed reading - thank you to everyone who has; you've been utterly fabulous. I've loved hearing your thoughts, your encouragement, your criticism, your questions. Basically -you're stars!  
  
Comments are utterly adored, pored over, acclaimed, framed, revered, cheered and occasionally feared. Please tell me what you think - I love hearing!   
  
I hope you enjoy!  
Ki  
  
Shimmer Part Eighteen  
  
Jepar was unable to look away as his life splintered around him.  
  
Looking into the past, looking onto a window covered by a spiderweb of broken lines. Looking onto his shattered, ugly history and seeing the glass separating it from his safe world fading until there was nothing between that time of blood and now.  
  
Running...  
  
But you couldn't run, you could never run from yourself. It seemed to Jepar like his life had been spent running in one way or another, running from the responsibility of his birthright, from the anger of his parents, from the coldness of his sister, from the searing meteor of a moment's rage.  
  
His anger had made him someone he didn't want to be and even though that creature was subdued, it still lurked hungrily in the back of his mind, waiting with cold purpose and cruel hands. Always waiting for that one moment without control.   
  
And here it was; he was staring at his past, his beautiful, bloodied past and feeling the world around fall away. Nothing else mattered. Nothing when compared to this.  
  
Feeling that anger tight in his chest at the injustice of it all and that awful grief, like standing on the edge of a sheer drop and feeling his stomach lurch dangerously. Looking...hurting...remembering...  
  
...'How do you do that?'  
  
He had asked her that, hadn't he, and she had simply laughed and stretched those swan-sleek arms above her, arched one leg to meet them and balanced perfectly on the tip of her lean, strong foot.  
  
And now her voice came drifting out the mists of a past he had tried to forget, still so innocent and ordinary, full of vigour.   
  
...'I'm very bendy.'  
  
They had both laughed, hadn't they? Two kids, but even kids could play at flirting, imitating the coy glances and meaningful words of their elders. Two kids, looking at life and making their own parody, a parody that in later times would stop being funny and start being merely right.  
  
...'And you aren't human.'  
  
The thickness of that coiling pale brown hair had given it away. And the melted-butter richness of her eyes with their pupils dark as if a drop of black coffee had fallen there. Those eyes, her strongest features against the mismatched strength of her mouth and the square set of her jaw that stopped her being lovely and made her purely astounding.  
  
She had laughed and relaxed, sitting down on one of the sinkably-comfortable leather chairs his elder sister kept in her office.  
  
...'You must be the younger brother.' A sly glance. 'I'm a werewolf. And you are...?'  
  
...'Starving.'   
  
... 'Cats! You're all the same. Roddy - that's my big brother-'  
  
He had interrupted, seeing for the first time her face tighten with annoyance. She had loved to talk, sure enough, and interrupting her was a guaranteed way to wind up with one of those strong feet meeting your shinbone at high acceleration. 'Is he the one who's working out this contract with my sister?'  
  
...'Yeah.' They shared a mutually disgusted glance. 'Grown-ups! They take ages over one simple little thing. Signing paper and talking and arguing over where to put a comma in some sentence.'   
  
...'And they stuff us in some dingy little office,' Jepar had said, gesturing to the exquisitely furnished expanse, 'Forget all about us and expect us to sit around for hours.' He had rolled his eyes, grinned at this unexpected ally. 'I'm Jepar'.  
  
A long hand held out, a strong grip and no-nonsense about her tone. 'Vanira Alhaz. Reckon our sibs are fixing us up for company?'  
  
...'Yeah. Probably think it'll 'keep us out of trouble'.' Jepar mimicked his sister's cool voice. 'I'm never gonna get like that when I'm old.'  
  
She had laughed then, that dreadful gunshot of a laugh that had never ceased to make him flinch, in all the days Gata and Roderick Alhaz shoved him and Vanira into that office to talk, to work, to argue and play-fight, to have the clumsy, sweet beginnings of a relationship, a werewolf and a shapeshifter in an empty, furnished room.  
  
****  
  
It had all gone so horribly wrong. Vanira had died, she had died with a line of rubies blossoming on her throat and Jepar had run away from that room that was as empty as the space in his soul where she had sat.  
  
Yet half a year later, a witch called Chatoya Irkil had arrived, with her sorrowed eyes soft as moss and her smile shy and rare as a kingfisher. And again, he had been drawn by something he couldn't qualify at all, and again, it had gone horribly wrong.  
  
He had thought he could make it right; that he had been on the verge of stopping this moment's madness. And then she had thrown this black sorcery at him, painting Vanira in front of him with dark magick. Reading his mind as easily as Gata had always been able to; but then, with this sort of magick, what difficulty could his feeble mental shields pose?  
  
And there she was.  
  
Vanira, with her head tipped back, pale brown hair shining in the light of a sun long set and those melted-butter eyes glowing as bright as the blood necklacing her throat. Stepping forward as if running through the endless routines of complex dance movements she learned each week. Arms too white, dead-white and bleached.   
  
"She's gone," he said forcibly, blinking, turning from that grotesque twin of Vanira. "Don't throw my past back at me! Yes, I loved her and she died, but she is *gone*."  
  
He raised his eyes from that horrible visage and stared at Chatoya, her green eyes defiant and cruel, glowing with unearthly lights. But in them, like the tiny fractures on ice, the first shattering.  
  
This is her last defence, he realised. She's scared because even a little while without emotions is enough to make her forget how hard the world is. It's a long road we all walk, it's a lonely road and she's as scared as everyone else that the end will lead to darkness.  
  
"Stop it, Toya," he said very gently and stepped towards her, ignoring the stark mirage that smiled and moved and even whispered words in Vanira's voice.   
  
The fright in those green eyes overwhelming in its intensity, overlaid by a veneer of ferocity and madness.   
  
He stepped closer, unaware of holding his breath as those moss-soft eyes filled his world, as he took hold of her outstretched hands, hands that held the threads of a storm to break a world, and understood what had been done to her.  
  
Sonj's death, playing over and over in her head, locked there by a boy who had no compassion and no comprehension of love, hurting her so much that the fierceness and the flames was the only way to stop it.  
  
"I just want it to stop," she said softly, the pain in her face beyond her years, beyond belief.   
  
"I know," he said, still seeing that arching throat dotted with crimson. "So did I."  
  
He tugged on her hands and pulled her closer until she was close enough to kiss, this alien creature who seemed to have stepped from a world of swords and sorcery, this grieving girl who didn't understand why her sorrow was breaking her.   
  
"Let me help," he entreated, meeting those wild, crushed eyes with his own. "You're not meant to be this way. You know that."  
  
"I know it," she answered, while the rain fell soft as fingertip touches. "But I can't help it, I can't!"  
  
"I can," he said, not knowing if he could, but only knowing that stopping her from destroying herself in the throes of a storm was more important to him than anything. Than any crime, any sorrow, even the chimera of a lithe dancer with ruby blood on her neck. "You just have to trust me."  
  
And while she stood in his arms, two figures through a gauzy grey curtain of water, the chimera of that dancer girl rippled and faded. But on the ground, on the place where her feet had stood, lay two footsteps, as if a giant lizard paused to rest a breath.  
  
And like dragon's breath, the lightning tumbled across the skies.  
  
****  
  
"No, not now!" Lisa muttered as they ran along the main path that led past the ghost roads.   
  
Shadows were separating, separating into the spectral softness of wolf pelts, the hard gleam of green eyes drifting towards them in idle motion.  
  
"Out of my way," Cougar snarled as they blocked their way. "I don't have *time* for a dog-fight!"  
  
"You can't disturb them," the brazen voice of Donna Ares stated. She stepped out from the disputable shelter of the trees and slumped against one. "Our hunt-brother is stopping this...hex-born storm."   
  
"Could you *please* put some clothes on?" Lisa said. Cougar glanced over to see she had both hands clapped over her eyes. If it had been any other day, he would have been amused. Her values were oddly old-fashioned for someone born in the sixties. "I'm sure that can't be healthy."  
  
"Actually," he murmured, gold eyes flashing, "she looks pretty healthy to *me*."  
  
"Would you turn your libido off and your brain on?" Donna said coolly, but Cougar noticed she let the Pack encircle her, possessive and growling. "Listen to me, vampire boy. Your witch girl is losing herself. Pack knows that."  
  
Soft growls and glimmers of cool wolf eyes. Grey fur slinking and shaking as they moved closer.  
  
"We need to find them, please!" Lisa said. Her face was drawn tight with strain, its lines hard in the light. Not a tribal warrior, but a statue moving, all carven lines and calm stillness. "We have to help her."  
  
"Leave it to the hunt-brother," Donna ordered. "He is only the only one who can catch her soul."  
  
Cougar narrowed his eyes, watching the Pack leader with new respect. "How do you know that?"  
  
"Pack listens and Pack learns, nightwalker," that husky, dry voice told him while her white teeth gleamed briefly. "Pack has more wisdom than the wise ones who make us outcast."  
  
"That ain't all, is it though?"   
  
Iry Lupine stepped out of the trees with his usual lazy smile, though it was somewhat dimmed. He was as thoroughly soaked as all of them, water trailing down his damp, creased clothes and shining on his blunt-cut face and tousled hair that even the rain couldn't quite flatten.  
  
The Pack froze as one, and turned to face the new threat. Cougar could hear their mental voices, more animal than human, echoing one another.   
  
~ Lone wolf...not-of-us...Pack-hater...not-of-them...ancient one...lonely walker...never-of-us. ~  
  
"Oh, leave it out," Iry told them, cracking his knuckles. "'Less Jubatus gets his act together, we're all goin' to be lookin' at the business end of an apocalypse." His careless gaze brushed Donna. "What that charmin' creature ain't tellin' you is that they tried to stop Jubatus goin' through earlier an' didn't succeed."  
  
"You watched us?" Donna Ares' savage eyes as flickeringly green as the light beneath sea water. Beautiful in their own way, Cougar decided, but drifting below them, hidden riptides. "You were told to keep away from Pack."  
  
"Well, if your mangy Pack strolls past where I'm takin' a moment's break from my busy schedule of gettin' pneumonia an' hypothermia, I ain't the one who's goin' to leave." Iry raised an eyebrow, the effect spoiled by the water cascading down his face. "'Sides, if you didn't notice me, ain't no harm done. 'Cept to your pride, maybe."   
  
This has to be one of the oddest situations I have ever been in, Cougar concluded, as he gazed around him. Pack, lone wolf, made vampire and lamia, all four enemies in other places, in other times, shivering and soaked in the unnatural torrent of a storm, united by what came down to curiosity.  
  
"So what are we supposed to do?" Lisa asked, settling herself by a Pack wolf who snapped at her half-heartedly until she backhanded it across the muzzle. "Wait?"  
  
"Guess so," Cougar said and sank beside her. "Think he's got a hope in hell?"  
  
"In hell?" Lisa laughed, but there was no humour to it. "I think this is hell, Cougar. Having to stand by and watch while friends and family die. Having no control. That's what hell is."  
  
Her face was drawn. With his preternatural vision, Cougar could see a muscle flickering in her cheek.   
  
"Nah," he said, leaning back. "Hell is colder than this. Haven't you ever been to Britain?"  
  
That elicited a laugh from her at least. The Pack however, stared at him with baffled eyes. Cougar ignored the young wolf - little more than a pup really - who huddled under his bent legs and watching the water dripping through the leaves above him, trying to guess which way it would fall. Silver drops, murky drops, dropping like stars and oil.  
  
He was never right.  
  
And that was it. No one could guess the future. No one could predict the twists of another's heart, the tides of relationships that could warp into storms. He didn't know if Jepar could bring Chatoya back from this half-world she had thrown them into. He didn't even know if Chatoya wanted to return.  
  
I guess this is what they mean by blind faith, he thought glumly. I have to trust some sentimental shapeshifter to stop a witch who's not so much lost the plot as rewritten it and expanded it into a trilogy. To top it all off, she's my little brother's soulmate, and though he might be playing with a full deck, it's a marked one. And what the hell is Jepar going to do if he finds out?   
  
"Got a question," he mumbled to Lisa. The monotonous drip of the rain was faintly soothing, once you ignored the gripping cold and sliding damp.   
  
"Go ahead." She was idly scratching the pup under its chin, receiving an indifferent growl.  
  
"Suppose Jepar does bring her back. You think she's going to tell him about her and Blue?"  
  
He looked over to see the African girl frozen in thought. "No," she said finally. "I think secrets run in her family and she has nothing to gain by telling him. If all this works out. And that's a big if, Cou."  
  
Cougar Redfern recalled a night when he had wondered if he would survive, and knew that if really didn't mean much. In the real world, if was practically a certainty.  
  
"But if she doesn't tell him," he persisted, "...do we?"  
  
She raked her hands through her hair, the neat plaits separating easily and the beads wound into them clicking. "I think we should respect her wishes, Cougar. If she and Jepar can be happy..." she shrugged. "There's so little happiness. Who are we to destroy that?"  
  
****  
  
"I trust you." The words little more than a sigh.   
  
He smiled faintly. This creature who could have torn him into shreds without a thought, with her hands curled around his neck and holding on to him as tightly as he was her. "That's enough," he said as he had but a few days back in the darkness of a cave that seemed not merely miles but aeons away.  
  
He shut his eyes, leaned his forehead against hers and felt that simple, childlike trust that came from the despair, the exhaustion in her soul. She had thrown every part of her into this storm to escape and now there was almost nothing left except that dreadful dark power that fed from her.  
  
And in her head, he could see that scene replaying, each time another lash of the whip stinging blood from her back. Until he wasn't sure which thoughts were his, which Chatoya's.  
  
Sonj Jameson, with her one eye determined and scared, stepping back. How that long cloak of dark red hair had swung and flown around her as she fell, and how her hands had curled and uncurled weakly.   
  
And then that strange little smile as she looked up at her killer; not Chatoya but the boy whose soul had stepped willingly into a cage that kept the world away, that smile bright against the dozens of blood-roses that bloomed from her skin.   
  
Now he understood how it hurt Chatoya, how deep it cut her because in her mind, the silver eye of that girl became the silver sheen of a knife in moonlight; the fell light of fire on her parents burning; the dreadful fear of himself dying, of the others dying. Because Chatoya had found it desperately easy to care for the strange Nightpeople who had looked after her and she was so afraid to disappoint them, to hurt them. And when she had let Sonj die, she had failed-  
  
~ No, ~ Jepar said fiercely, erasing the cruel replay from her head with one mental swoop. Pushing it back where it belonged, into her memories, not in her present. ~ You have not, you have never failed us. ~  
  
~ I must have. ~ Her head dropping to his shoulder. ~ I let Josh die. I let Sonj die. I would have let all of you die if you hadn't come. What else have I done but fail? ~  
  
~ Dear one, ~ he said gently, blinking away blood-roses. ~ If you have failed, we all have. I let Vanira die. I tell myself that all the time. But I know that once she made her choice, nothing I could have done would have made any difference. She made her own choice. ~   
  
~ And I mine. But my choices were wrong. ~  
  
~ Your choices were not your own. Not recently. There has been dragon magick swimming your bloodstream, and where magick walks, dragons follow. But listen to me; your choice cannot change everything. Could you have stopped Blue from deciding to kill Sonj? ~  
  
There was an odd hesitancy in her voice then, but he ignored it. ~ I...don't think so. ~  
  
~ It wasn't your fault, ~ he told her. ~ It never was. ~  
  
A long pause as she heard the truth of that. Then she released that dark magick and he felt it flow away, back to where it belonged. With the spell no longer in place to hold her emotions back, the space that had allowed the dragon magick to grow and spread was gone too.   
  
~ Wasn't it? ~ she said ruefully. There was sadness there, but finally, acceptance. ~ I don't know if I can ever believe that. ~  
  
~ I can believe for the both of us. ~  
  
Those green eyes lifted to his with a semblance of her old serenity. ~ But can you forget your own guilt? ~  
  
Vanira. Toya had taken that from his mind, the terrible picture that had haunted him these past months.  
  
~ That wasn't your fault, ~ she told him and even smiled a little, tremulously. ~ Forgive me and I will forgive you. ~  
  
He stared, astonished by this girl who he thought he knew and yet who seemed to change constantly, like a jewel leaping as the light moved around it.   
  
Maybe, he thought, she had it right. Because he understood that perhaps he needed her, not to take away or to replace the memories of that arching dancer, but to teach him to accept them. And to move on. To live.   
  
We're all running here. I thought I would run forever, that it would never stop. I didn't see that it could. There was always one more ghost sparkling in the sunlight, one more unforgiving memory. And once you started to run, I didn't realise that you could stop. That you could make a new road to walk on, that you could make your own ending.  
  
He laughed, and thought of not the fearful past, not the uncertain future but of a new beginning, a certain *now* with a girl with black hair, a girl he held close and swore never to run from. Her green eyes held an anguish he knew would never fade entirely, a sorrow that was in his own face too.  
  
But despite this, she smiled back, amidst the softness of spring rain. ~ I forgive you. ~   
  
****  
  
Thank you so much! Your thoughts are loved, savoured and worshipped. 


End file.
